Thin Ice Olympics by Jeffery McDaniel

Also available at: Buy on Amazon Buy on Barnes & Noble Buy on Bookshop.org     Arranged in mostly chronological order, this book unfolds as a poetic dream diary, delving into the psyche of an American citizen isolated in a Hudson Valley village during the Covid pandemic. Alongside a wife and teenage daughter, amidst dazed loneliness, grief, and dark humor, the poetic speaker confronts mortality as death looms close. Yearning for connection with both living and departed loved ones, the poems oscillate between profanity and boldness, tenderness and sincerity. At times profane and brash, at other times tender and sincere. The poems are natural in the throat as speech, and yet energized by explosive metaphor, achieving moments of bruised pathos and temporary enlightenment.