Wisdom & Dust

by Neil McCrea

Neil McCrea is a poet and author living in the Pacific Northwest. His work has most recently appeared in Knock, a Review of General Semantics , and in the NeoPoiesis anthology Candy. Wisdom & Dust is his first poetry collection. Reviews "Like water into wine, McCrea consistently and effortlessly transforms the quotidian into the revelatory. Wisdom & Dust dazzles and surprises with its pathos, wit, and insight."
- Jonathan Evison, author of All About Lulu and West of Here "The impressive poems in Wisdom & Dust have the swagger and pulse of the authentic. McCrea's characters, filled with equal parts rage and longing, bravado and despair, live in a universe where sucker punches and life-changing epiphanies wait at every turn."
- James P. Othmer, author of The Futurist and Holy Water "Vivid and revealing, Neil McCrea's Wisdom & Dust tells stories of lust, love, lawlessness, and root beer. The powerful but dark outlook reminds one of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye , but with a sexual twist."
- Alyse Black - International Award-Winning Touring & Recording Artist "Following Neil McCrea's optimistic and innocent boy into manhood left me feeling like I'd committed some sort of new sin myself, like I was partly responsible for his descent into all of this cool, blue madness."
- Jeannette Kantzalis, songwriter/novelist

Genres: Poetry

198 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2010

About the author

Neil McCrea is a mythical figure of the moss covered Pacific Northwest. It is said he subsists entirely on a diet of ugly truths, beautiful lies, and scotch. Work attributed to him has appeared in etc: the journal of general semantics, Knock, the erotic anthology Candy from Neo-Poiesis Press, and almost every issue of The Poetic Pin-Up Revue. Wisdom & Dust is the first volume of his collected work. He has received a lifetime of lionization from the Association of Arduous Alliteration, achieved apotheosis with the society of mendacious malapropisms, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t say I’ve read anything like this before. In some ways it contains the darkness of the drugs and sex from Hubert Selby Jr. ran through the mind of an adept poet. I seemed to care less about the poems of sex than other topics/subjects, and really liked the mythological references and allusions found through the book. As I neared the end I found myself thinking more and more about how much I’d love to read a hard-boiled crime novel written by McCrea. It would be wonderful. Even if that wish is never fulfilled I’d gladly ready another book of his poetry.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this book back in December but with so much shit going on in my life I had a hard time focusing and when I did focus and see clearly it wasn't helping my current mental state. This is not meant to be a bad thing or a statement made about the book itself. Just my current frame of mind when I first cracked it opened.

The stories are gritty... gritty like chewing a mouthful of sand, like peeping in a hole and seeing something that you really really really wish you hadn't seen but since you did, you now know. And now that you know, you walk with your eyes a little wider.

My favorite stories (not sure why but most are from the end of the book) are 'Fuck Buddies Don't...', 'Killdeer Blues', 'Springtime is Hard on the Little Things', 'Funeral March of the Raccoons' (Loved that one), 'Auction Day', Gomita De Tamarindo Con Chile', 'The Coming Storm', 'Avec Moi le Deluge', 'Killers', 'I Want to Enter My House Justified', 'No Lessons to be Learned' (loved this one too), 'Butterball and I' (put a smile on my face), and 'Looking at a Dead Dog'.

Neil has a way of stringing words together to create meanings and emotions that sometimes intertwine, weave, separate, explode, and then come back together in the end to tie you up with thoughts that just won't go away so easily.

I'm not a huge poetry man... but this is a book I'll be picking up from time to time to remind me that there are holes out there I might not want to peep into but know I may be all the better for trying.

[Ioanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I thought this isn't for me, but then I read...more...later and I started to "see" him, his world,(not my world, but then it was interesting to be updated on some of that, and that he was good at getting it down. I first got into McCrea because his reviews are so good--they're telling, he gets to the point succinctly, and as an extra plus he's well read. The reviews and the poems are peppered with literary references, something I like. The second attempt at Wisdom and Dust, a title I love, because it has all kinds of associations on both sides of that equation--from say, Philosophers to bite the dust, something that happens to his characters (yes, his poems are stories) quite often, literally, and also, metaphorically, dust to dust.
He's got a tough motorcycle, acquainted with low-life, persona but he's also capable of good old-fashioned techniques like alliteration:
"clip clop chain drop/a classic coaster/copped from an old....."
There are other nice things in that poem about city kids going to a country fair, dough that's "giddy with grease," for example, and the end:
"driving back/with snarky sarcasm/from the small town/unaware/the feelings are reciprocated"
He's very sophisticated, psychologically interesting: "Coltish Ramona, grown goddess like/ High School fantasy, now found/ in a domain I dominate." Of course he gets put down immediately--at least to his way of thinking, but though he's in a "tough guy" situation, it's typical of him that he would have a "esprit d'escalier' moment.
He also has range; Call Me Paco is a funny quick take on the America we don't want to know, a la Tony Hoagland.
I could go on, there's a lot going on in this collection, I was put off by a lot of hard-core sex descriptions, but after a while you realize that's not the main "thrust" of this collection, and then he also does cool things with that aspect of it when he wants to: "I put Lisa through all the positions/left in me."
Some other memorable lines: "Control is not yet my own/but I'm not beyond asking for help." Drawing her out was more difficult,/ but I can be a lively listener." Love that, it probably describes him as a poet very well. While Neil sleeps the "sleep of the innocent, the just , and the horribly intoxicated.." I will be looking forward to his next book. If you want to try him at his best to see if you're interested, try these: Rootbeer, Twitch and Froth, Broken Conscience Interrogation, and his homage to Bukowski poem, Drinking with the Hunted, another great title.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may sound extreme, but I literally cannot live without this book.

It reads like a rainy night complete with a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of scotch, and an old friend.

You need it. You really do.

[Lisette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consumption of this soul-bearing poetry collection by Neil McCrae is best enjoyed via microdosing rather than binging. Equal parts touching, gutting and humorous, McCrae's candor feels like "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" as channeled through the likes of Bukowski and Hunter S.Thompson.

If "to feel something" is what you seek, there is a lot to be gleaned here. No promises that all of those feelings will be good, but you may find yourself irrevocably moved nonetheless.

[Outi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 stars. Poetry is always hard when it's not written in your mother tongue, I think and there are some very strange and fancy words! I had trouble understanding some of the fine points of McCrea's poems. But then again, the ones I got and understood went right under my skin. Conspire was one of the most beautiful poems in the compilation and then there were The World of Shit, Sub Plot and Killers that were so powerful, weird yet wonderful. The one I remember the best for some reason is Fuck Buddies Don't... that felt so close.

A great compilation of poems that are small worlds in themselves. It was a bit hard to get into it but when I did, it was mind-blowing at best.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for people who say the hate poetry. Once read,some of the poems stayed with me for a long time, like "Killers", which made me cry the first time I read it. The collection reads like a cohesive life story,and that life is not always good. Some parts are uncomfortable to read because the emotions are so familiar; sometimes you don't want them to be so. The book is honest, unflinching and with no apologies. When you are finished reading it,you will want to know and read more.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wonderfully crafted poems in this book deal with life situations that can either grab you by the throat and punch you in the gut, or suck the tears right out of your eyes when you least expect it. McCrea's world is seen through unflinching eyes underscored with a modern almost punk sensibility, and it never lets you forget that you are being carried along to depths that poetry is meant to do by every classic definition.

[Annie Cargirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neil is a phenomenal poet. Each piece is a short story in poem form. His use of a narrative style in his work draws the reader in and makes them feel and see and hear everything that the subjects in his poems feel and see and hear. I never tire of reading his work. Each poem is a heartfelt vignette. You will not regret picking up this collection.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book of poetry that I have ever read.