Crows in the Jukebox

Mike James' Crows in the Jukebox rises from the most human of subjects: family, memory, grief, and love. James meditates on personal, familial and communal losses and tries to make sense of the passing of time. And he does it by placing his verse in the tradition of poets such as Franz Wright, James Tate, Bill Knott, and Allen Ginsberg. These poems are honest. They rest in observation and meditation. They are lucid. Subtle. Crisp. While unadorned and unpretentious, they offer a delightfully generous and loving attention to everyday details. Along with their simple, elegant lines lies an unmistakable longing, something akin to saudade, a kind of melancholy for something that has not happened. Resisting sentimentality, these poems seem to nod to the end of days. They acknowledge the broken world and embody a collected sense of acceptance with a transformative sense, reminding us as James so beautifully says, "grace can come in the harvest of wild things." Andrea Jurjevic,