Trying to Be a Person - Paperback

by Wesley Scott McMasters (Author)

What strikes me most about the poems in Trying to Be a Person is how they've found their place in the family of American poetry. Descendants of Dickinson and Whitman-the grandparents of modern poetry-his poems pay homage to family members as diverse, and yet as similar, as Allen Ginsberg and Marshall Mathers.

In one poem, I hear the echo of William Carlos Williams, but instead of so much depending upon a red wheelbarrow, it's a red dress and red sweater falling over a girl's hips.

McMasters says, maybe I'll learn something, and he does in every poem, using whatever's around him, taking his readers along. Even though he claims, I don't look for the divine, he finds it, feet firmly planted in everyday experiences, holding planets in my back pocket.

Author Biography

Wesley Scott McMasters is from rural Pennsylvania and always will be. He writes, teaches, and is an editor for Red Flag Press. He has a handful of poems and fiction pieces scattered across the internet and in a few print publications, including Pennsylvania English. He aspires to someday have a large garden and a full glass of good bourbon.