Pax Atomica: Poems – Lyrical Meditations on American Culture and the Tangled Romance of Self and Society

by Campbell McGrath

"America's epic is the odyssey of appetite," Campbell McGrath declares, and these poems track those defining hungers across a social landscape by turns "grave, risible, amazing, banal," cataloging the "vortex of images in a ruined theater the culture comes to resemble," from Rocky and Bullwinkle to "Blue Angels rampant on a field of static, / anthem and flag descending to darkness." In terza rima meditations, rock-and-roll elegies, and abecedarian lyrics, Pax Atomica documents the tangled romance between self and society ("in which / the melody's ampersand ensnares us") in ways both new and familiar to readers of McGrath's five previous volumes. A continuation as well as a departure for one of America's most highly honored poets, this is poetry of formal eloquence and rhetorical power, of vision and engagement. Pax Atomica descends into the maelstrom of American culture and emerges singing.

Genres: Poetry

62 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2004

About the author

Campbell McGrath (born 1962) is a modern American poet. He is the author of nine full-length collections of poetry, including his most recent, Seven Notebooks (Ecco Press, 2008), Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Ecco Press, 2009), and In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, forthcoming, 2012).
Contents

1 Life
2 Music
3 Awards
4 Works
5 Bibliography
6 References
7 External links

Life

McGrath was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School; among his classmates was the poet Elizabeth Alexander. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1984 and his MFA from Columbia University's creative writing program in 1988, where he was classmates with Rick Moody. He currently lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and teaches creative writing at Florida International University, where his students have included Richard Blanco, Susan Briante, Jay Snodgrass and Emma Trelles. He is married to Elizabeth Lichtenstein, whom he met while he was an undergraduate; they have two sons.[1]
Music

In the early 1980s, while a student at the University of Chicago, he was a member of the punk band Men From The Manly Planet.[2]
Awards

McGrath has been recognized by some of the most prestigious American poetry awards, including the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award (for "The Bob Hope Poem" in Spring Comes to Chicago, his third book of poems), a Pushcart Prize, the Academy of American Poets Prize, a Ploughshares Cohen Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award." In 2011 he was named a Fellow of United States Artists.[3]
Works

While primarily known as a poet, McGrath has also written a play, "The Autobiography of Edvard Munch" (produced by Concrete Gothic Theater, Chicago, 1983); a libretto for Orlando Garcia's experimental video opera "Transcending Time" (premiered at the New Music Biennalle, Zagreb, Croatia, 2009); collaborated with the video artist John Stuart on the video/poetry piece "14 Views of Miami" (premiered at The Wolfsonian, Miami, 2008); and translated the Aristophanes play The Wasps for the Penn Greek Drama Series.
Bibliography

Dust (chapbook, Ohio Review Press, 1988)
Capitalism (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)
American Noise (Ecco Press, 1993)
Spring Comes to Chicago (Ecco Press, 1996)
Road Atlas (Ecco Press, 1999)
Mangrovia (chapbook, Short Line Editions, 2001)
Florida Poems (Ecco Press, 2002)
Pax Atomica (Ecco Press, 2004)
Heart of Anthracite: New & Collected Prose Poems (Stride Press, UK)
Seven Notebooks (Ecco Press, 2008)
Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Ecco Press, 2009)
The Custodian & Other Poems (chapbook, Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2011)
In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, 2012)

References

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this collection but it didn't do it for me. McGrath's dedication reads: "For 1962," and Pax Atomica is all about Americana from the 60's era. There are one or two mentions to the cold war and aerospace, but much of it is about pop culture and consumerism. There are several terza rimas (with terrible meter and some rhymes so slanted I'm not sure I would give them a pass), several abecedarians (and a few interesting variations on the abecedarian), a few prose poems, and a bit of free verse. I admire McGrath's diction and his dedication to lesser-known forms of poetry, but otherwise there isn't much of interest.

The bad stood out far more than the good. One of the first poems, "Train Song," is a repetitive, nine-page journey through the states:

Song of the conjoined, song of the conjured, song of raised arms at
  the crossing, song of slabs and coiled serpents.
Song of drawn curtains, of bespoken, song of the dimly lit by eventide.
  Song of the reverential lightning bolt, song of the lordly upwelling.
Song of the cigarette billboard, of graffiti in the overpass, SHADEY N
  LUIS 4 EVER.
Song of the gridnstoen, song of the flywheel, song of the lost
  Walker Evans church on the hill.

[...]

Theme and variation, theme and variation.
Click-clack, click-clack:
hum, buzz, trill.

I was also disappointed by "Xena, Warrior Princess," and "Love©," which, unfortunately, were placed back to back in the collection. I mean...congratulations on capturing the essence of 60's suburban misogyny?

...but how can I be
positive there's not some even more red-blooded
queen of ambidextrous rubber swordplay out there, some
righteous cable access babe in skin-tight
skins or tights, or neanderthal whatnot, or silver
Teflon space bikini, or that black elastic rattlesnake suit
Uma wore in The Avengers, Uma, the uber-
vixen. But what a movie—
Woof! Some are born to run and some are born to rerun

(p. 38, "Xena, Warrior Princess).

and

I've got the trademark, I've got the copyright,
cupcake, sweet molasses, sugar pie.

(p. 39, "Love©").

Sometimes I admired McGrath's glibness, but none of his poems amazed me. His dedication to a few poetic forms and to the theme of Americana are the only worthwhile things about this collection. Most of the poems aren't worth reading.

Poems that I liked:
"The Human Heart," "Woe," "Two Songs."

=3/22 (13.6%) poems that I liked.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is absolutely the book of poems I've always wanted to read--a volume that deals with the paradoxical nature of being American, how it's so easy to love and hate a place so much, to have adopted a place as your own for all the idealism it embodies even as consumerism and corruption rear their ugly heads. And there are some poems in here that are well written with lines that make me hold my breath. But so many of them just slide off the mark because they read like they're trying a little too hard--too many thesaurus words to flow smoothly, too many "look at this writing, aren't I clever?" moments that it was hard to stay engaged with the poem itself. And maybe I'm being unfair because poetry is certainly in part the construction of lines and the placement of words--and I do try to give some leeway. But many of the poems here--especially some of the three-line stanzas were awkwardly structured and just didn't have the right rhythm for me. It's a shame because I think his conception is everything that I want to read more about. If only this book could be an entire volume of "Hits of the 70s".

[Glenda Burgess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim book introduced me to McGrath's work. There are several surprising and startling poems to treasure, but The Human Heart spoke so freshly and vibrantly, completely orginal in its lush cadences and unforgettable imagery, that it actually became the epigram/cornerstone of a book I then wrote...(THE GEOGRAPHY OF LOVE, Doubleday/Broadway Books, reelase date April 2008).

I can think of no greater compliment to another writer than to say I found in your words something more I had to say.

[john callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book of poems from Campbell McGrath. Accessible as always. The poems are shorter and less sprawling stylistically than "The Bob Hope Poem" in his book Spring Comes to Chicago. There is an interesting sequence of poems about rock & roll spread throughout the book, including a poem about the deceased Jeffrey Lee Pierce (of The Gun Club), and (perhaps) best of all, the poem "Girl with Blue Plastic Radio," about the poet's first experience in early childhood of hearing popular music on the radio.

Yeah, this review is inadequate, but I strongly recommend this book.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Here's an example of why ...

"What a glorious passage, a shimmering bridge,
embodying everything rock and roll aspires to be,
heroic and violent and joyous and juvenile
and throbbing with self-importance and percolating
with melodrama and thrilled and scared by
its own anthemic power, by the kid-on-a-scooter freedom
and the hill a lot steeper than it seemed at first glance,
what the hell, rust never sleeps, live and let die, etc., etc."

from the poem "GUNS N' ROSES," p. 48.

[Lily Rose Maryja Broderick · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few good poems, but most just weren't my cup of tea.

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these poems that celebrate American pop culture and its lingering effect on our adult selves, McGrath moves between long meditations and short lyrics, and between seriousness and humorous. Reverent with its irreverence, what a joy to read.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

My introduction to McGrath's work, but there are better.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good that I continued reading past page 30, which was when I realized I had read this before

[Ellen Roberts Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with many of his views, but I missed the element of surprise which the best poems have. He's easy to read but sometimes goes on too long.

[Amy Kitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so much fun to read...very nice book that anyone would enjoy.