A Hunger for Mourning by David McLean

erbacce Press are proud to announce the release of A Hunger for Mourning by David McLean.

McLean says "This is a chapbook with 52 poems written recently. None had been accepted for publication at the time. Some have since. They are about the night, sex, death, substance abuse, borderlines and crossing them, and the grave that awaits us full of fathers and nothing."

Two reviews:

David McLean is no slouch when it comes to putting words onto the page - if you've witnessed his prodigious output on his myspace page it will come as no surprise that the 40 or so poems in a hunger for mourning were all written within the space of two or three weeks. So don't buy this book if you're looking for polished gems cut and honed to perfection, what you get here is not so much a collection as a slice of the life of the muse of David McLean - and what a powerful muse it is! It's a worm of the dragon kind, though he keeps his wings folded, compulsively snouting through the undergrowth and the detritus layers of the soil looking for bitter roots to chew and bones to blacken, and just occasionally looking up with a curiously boy-like twinkle in his eyes. So relentless is this beast that sometimes the poet seems to tire of the effort of controlling it - here and there a poem tapers off or succumbs to flippancy, and some words become repetitive and rob his vision of some of it's potency - but mostly he maintains a determinedly persistent course. (You may need a dictionary for some of his words, by the way, I did!) His themes are consistent, his humour dry and his vision dark, and poems often seem to morph one into the other. It might all become too familiar if it were not for the poet's able wordcraft and that incredibly strong sense of his muse writhing it's way through it all. There is some fine poetry here, but I have no doubt the poet would be stunned if anyone were to make too many claims for what is, after all, just the poems that he happened to write in those particular two or three weeks in a year of apparently non-stop writing. What excites most is the prospect of meeting that muse again six months down the line, I have no doubt I will recognise it - or will I? The real reason you should get yourself a copy of a hunger for mourning is not to pick out any one treasure, but to marvel at the living entity that is the ongoing poetic progeny of David McLean.

by Ceris Dien

I'm in labor as I write this review, which shows how much I love David McLean's poetry. David's poems philosophize with spits and snarls. The poems are well-crafted without being bone dry and boring. In short, David's poetry contains meaty, juicy lines, lines you can sink your teeth into. Although A Hunger For Mourning is available as a download, I recommend buying an actual copy of the book so you will have something tangible and solid in your hands that you can return to again and again. And David needs money for Swedish beer. It isn't as cheap as you might think.

by Misti Rainwater-Lites

ISBN: 978-0-9555-7545-7

40 pages