The rest of you can grab a copy of my book, “Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon” by clicking this link: www.mcnairpoet.com/shop. If you enter the code cwc20 in the coupon box, you will receive 20% of your entire order (until 06/27/2020).
Come in to the Swinging Door!
An incredible trip through the passions and experiences of an equally incredible poet. I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in life death and love.
Malachi Boyle
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, wrenching, emotionally honest poetry
The poems in Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon by Randall McNair are funny, enlightening, wrenching, and sometimes uncomfortable, as emotionally honest poetry often is.
Unique and gritty images paint stories about love, family, and the working life, with a steady undercurrent of whisky and beer. "The Banker" reflexively moves his jaw as he moves money, and "The Average Man" emerges from "green sage and yellow wallpaper,/the smell of cat piss and bacon."
Many of the most memorable poems ponder the act of writing, as in "La-Z-Poems" where the poem comes alive as a child, drinking buddy, compatriot, and self-author. Poignant elegies of family arise in "Eating My Uncle's Egg McMuffin Hours After He Died," as images of cannibalism and self-disgust ring with remembrance. In another poem, the author writes: "My dead kin walk my brain/spilling potato salad and whiskey."
One of my favorite passages begins:
"I Apologize”
The hummingbird
fluttering into my
peripheral vision
was really just
a napkin caught
in the roses
McNair acknowledges the influence of Charles Bukowski, and I hear echoes of his earthy urban images in these poems. A collection well worth reading.
Terry Tierney, author of “The Poet's Garage”
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic Character Arc
What a great book! McNair brings Bukowski into the 21st century. Over seven thematic sections, we track the speaker’s character development. After the speaker struggles to make it in the working world and goes on all-night benders in the Swinging Door Saloon, he takes a more introspective look at himself as a husband, father, and ultimately a man. Therefore, Dispatches From The Swinging Door Saloon shows an evolving voice seeking a place where he earns a living, is welcomed, and loved for the man and poet he is.
Keith Mark Gaboury, author of “Hello, Universe” & “Oakland, I’m not Dead”
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bukowski would be proud.
Randy McNair is a modern-day American hero. His work reminds us that great poetry comes from the heart, through the head, and is tinged with everything that has touched both. And Mr. McNair has been through a lot — from baseball player to boring banker job, to being at death’s door with cancer. He sat in a dive bar and wrote for 10 years — waiting for the grim reaper to reel him in, drinking his fill as if to speed it up.
But, while he waited, he wrote. He wrote it all down — about death, about love, about life — all his musings, befitting of somebody with a devil may care attitude, but deep soul. Somebody not afraid to check out, but with definitely more to live for. It’s deep. It’s direct. It’s brave. It’s funny. It’s absurd.
In Dispatches, McNair lets it all flow — elegantly, with style; but bluntly like a rock. No holds are barred. He writes about life’s deepest feelings and most trivial nuances. The influence of Bukowski comes shining through. I’m also reminded of the Beat poets back in the day.
I highly recommend it.
Jeff Shaw
5.0 out of 5 stars