By the Windpipe

Leslie McGrath’s courageous, compassionate, clear-eyed, and thoughtfully made poems in By the Windpipe grant the irrational—the “madness” that resides in each of us—permission to be in the world, another aspect of our humanness, and without pathology or judgment.

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Praise for By the Windpipe

Leslie McGrath’s courageous, compassionate, clear-eyed, and thoughtfully made poems in By the Windpipe grant the irrational—the “madness” that resides in each of us—permission to be in the world, another aspect of our humanness, and without pathology or judgment. McGrath’s skillful use of craft, deep empathy, and always keen and perceptive mind provide the container for feelings of confusion, rage, grief, and profound isolation that often plague those who suffer the stigma of psychiatric illness (“A mind strafed / by early loss learns to hold on hold on”). We accompany the speaker on a descent, the darkness of which is tempered throughout by a felt sheen of hope. By collection’s end I’d been led to a clearing—“a green so green you called it ransom”—to a sense of release, acceptance, of having been changed. I’m grateful these brave poems exist.

Mari L’Esperance, author, The Darkened Temple (poems) and co-editor of Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine

About the Author

Leslie McGrath is a poet and literary interviewer who first trained as a clinical psychologist. Her interviews with poets have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle. Winner of the 2004 Pablo Neruda Prize for poetry, she is the author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage (2009), a poetry collection, and the forthcoming Out From the Pleiades: a novella in verse (Jaded Ibis Press). McGrath’s poetry often explores themes about interpersonal relationships and mental health. Her forthcoming chapbook with ELJ Publications, By the Windpipe, focuses on the mentally ill, the stigma they live with, and the history of psychiatric treatment She teaches creative writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University and is editor of The Tenth Gate, a new poetry imprint of The Word Works press, Washington, D.C.

By the Windpipe

Praise for By the Windpipe

About the Author

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