Trying To Be A Person [Paperback]

What strikes me most about the poems in Trying to Be a Person is how theyve found their place in the family of American poetry. Descendants of Dickinson and Whitmanthe grandparents of modern poetryhis 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, its a red dress and red sweater falling over a girls hips.

McMasters says, maybe Ill learn something, and he does in every poem, using whatevers around him, taking his readers along. Even though he claims, I dont look for the divine, he finds it, feet firmly planted in everyday experiences, holding planets in my back pocket.