Punch

by Ray McManus

McManus's third book, "Punch.," is a call for the claw-hammer, a hymn to the steel toe, and a series of lonely missives from truck cabs and office cubicles. Punch. is a book about work, about the will that rises and the dust that falls. It is about being "lost, hungry, and hopeless, creeping toward the pipelines in a 78 Buick Regal with Big Star on the radio." Sometimes angry, sometimes darkly funny, these lean and muscular poems explore the world of punching in and punching out, the punch-drunk and the sucker-punched. Whether the poems are tightened by the rhythm of a hard hand, or the lines sprawl across the page with swagger, there is real music here. Brute voices, contemplative and haunting, speak to us with unwavering self-conflict and salty confidence. In these poems, life is a struggle and the end is already written, but there's something deeply moving about the resilience and resistance of these voices.

63 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Ray McManus’s poems and prose have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His poems can be quirky, sometimes funny, sometimes quite dark, often both at the same time. His first book, ­­Driving Through the Country Before You Are Born, was selected by Southern poet Kate Daniels and published by USC Press in 2007. Since then he has gone on to publish three more books: Left Behind (published by Stepping Stones Press in 2008), Red Dirt Jesus (selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Marick Press Poetry Prize and published by Marick Press in 2011), and Punch. (published by Hub City Press in 2014, and winner of the 2015 Independent Publishers Book Award). McManus also co-edited the anthology Found Anew with USC Press in 2015. His newest collection of poetry The Last Saturday in America was published in 2024 with Hub City Press.

McManus’s books center on the rural and sometimes repressive Southern culture of the Carolinas, and wrestle with the social norms of Southern masculinity, parenthood, and labor where the laughter, or worse silence, of others “is the threat that keeps us moving forward.” There are also repeated themes about the haunting presence of Ireland -- or more precisely, that unreal Ireland of the imagination that exists in family story and immigrant memory. McManus’s work teeters in the space between the narrative of hope and the heroics of failure, which he describes as the space he knows best by growing up working class in rural South Carolina.

Ray McManus earned his MFA in poetry and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of South Carolina. As a Professor of English at the University of South Carolina in Sumter, McManus teaches creative writing, Irish literature, and Southern Literature, and has won many awards for teaching and service. At USC Sumter he is the Chair of the Division of Arts & Letters and the Division of Humanities & Social Sciences, and the former Director of Faculty, Curricula, and Courses for Dual Enrollment.

For over twenty years, McManus has served the community through local and statewide initiatives to bring poetry to citizens of all ages in South Carolina. He is the Writer in Residence at the Columbia Museum of Art where facilities literary arts programming and hosts the podcast ​Binder. in 2000, McManus founded Split P Soup, a creative writing outreach program that places writers in schools and communities in South Carolina. He served 18 years as the director of the creative writing program at the Tri-District Arts Consortium. He has also served two terms on the Board of Governors for the South Carolina Academy of Authors (the last term as chair). His current outreach project is Re:Verse, a teaching initiative that works with teachers and administrators on developing effective strategies for bringing creative writing back to standard education. In 2023, Ray McManus received the Governor's Award for the Arts -- the highest award bestowed in the arts in South Carolina.

​McManus lives in South Carolina with his wife, their three children, and their grandson.

Reviews

[David Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gritty, poignant, and beautiful.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book of poetry; Interspersed with some text poems, the majority of the work deals with the author's experiences in tree-cutting and growing up in rural South Carolina. The language is tight, even intense at times, yet full of emotion and imagery. One need not to have experienced what McManus has lived to appreciate this book. Like Philip Levine, Ray McManus finds poetry and satisfaction in daily work, which need not crush the spirit. I especially liked :How to Add a Porch to a Trailer", "The Blacksmith", and "Dog Box".

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of poetry I will come back to again and again. The title "Punch" couldn't be more perfect. It is unforgiving, beautiful, and it will sit with me for a long time.

[Tonya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not my thing.

[Jon Sokol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blue collar poetry collection with a perfect title. Beautifully done.

[b · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Good style. Good stuff from McManus.