All Occasions

“Underlying the rich poems of love and life on the Texas plains, Walt McDonald’s All Occasions is haunted by the history of America’s wars in the twentieth century, and the sacrifices they required. The poems explore not just his own memories of Vietnam and his fear and pride at his son’s combat in Desert Storm, but also his grandfathers’ , uncles’ and father’s service in the two world wars. In its quiet and meditative way, it is a death-haunted book. Out of that meditation on the terrible costs of life rises a guilty but real gratitude in being alive.” ~Andrew Hudgins

“Walt McDonald has always written moving poems of immense compassion and care. For him, poetry is indeed everywhere, detailing and infusing All Occasions with layered mystery and grace. Give his words to anyone you know who doubts this. Or believe it already. He will befriend them, every one.” ~Naomi Shihab Nye

“Walt McDonald, like Edwin Arlington Robinson or William Stafford, is an American treasure who fashions from everyday speech a pure and electric poetry. He breaks lines better than most contemporary poets, and his concerns, both modest and universal, search out the region we should hold in the highest regard, the heart, and breaks it—its motions of grace, pity, and fear, its yearning like love to leave in one's wake a healthier atmosphere, if not a better world, for all one holds in affection, a shoring up against those days when all occasions seem indeed to inform against us: a beautiful book.” ~Larry Woiwode, author of Beyond the Bedroom Wall and What I Think I Did

“I’ve been reading Walt McDonald for years. His is the voice among contemporary poets most recognizable to me. This is not to say that his poems are without surprise (and therefore delight), or that he hasn’t grown and developed over the decades. In the same way we know Sinatra, or Willy, or Aretha, we recognize Walt McDonald, an American original. All Occasions gives us, page after page, one of our finest poets at the top of his game.” ~David Citino, Professor of English