Scotch Tape World

Scotch Tape World is a daring new poetry collection by Western Kentucky University professor Tom C. Hunley. Tom C. Hunley, on the evidence of these poems, is as in love with, as he is bewildered by, the world. And although that might seem a common way of being in the world, Hunley's ability to render his love and bewilderment precisely in his poems is unique and necessary. These poems manage to be funny without being cynical, and they manage to be honest without being cynical, and they manage to seem utterly contemporary without being cynical, and each of these achievements is a small miracle and almost an act of defiance. At one point, Hunley tells God, "I want you to fill my mouth / with water and prayer and maybe a jagged little song." I don't know how Hunley is set for water, and I don't know about his spiritual practices, but these poems read like answered prayers. --Shane McCrae