The Elements by James Scannell McCormick

The poems in James Scannell McCormick’s brilliant new collection The Elements are poignant and accessible: “Drenched scent of Lake Michigan’s wary west edge pressed lintels, / Jambs the day,” and you can feel as the “west wind carries that scent still, / Though miles inland:  fog-green water’s heavy lift and dip.”  Scannel McCormick’s poems offer us new insight into the “elements” of being.

—Leah Maines