{"product_id":"death-prefers-the-minor-keys","title":"Death Prefers the Minor Keys","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"\u003eA Publisher's Weekly Top 10 New Release in Poetry\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn his twentieth book, most of which was first composed on the backs of medical forms while on break as a third-shift medical technician, Sean Thomas Dougherty \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ebrings us a memoir-like prose sequence reflecting on disability, chronic illness, addiction, survival, love, and parenthood.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e,  Dougherty offers the reader collaged prose poems, stories and essays full of dreams,  metaphors, aphorisms, parables and narratives of his work as a caregiver.  Moving portraits of Dougherty’s residents, a series of letters to Death, invocations of Jewish ancestry through the photography of  Roman Vishniac, imaginary treatments for brain injuries, and half translated short stories of lives both real and imagined populate this collection. Through these, Dougherty engages issues of labor, the ontology of disability, and the mysticism of life. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e is most of all a kind of love letter to Dougherty’s wife, and her courage and complicity in the face of long-term illness and addiction.  Ultimately, we see how the antidote to despair can reside in daily acts of caring for other human beings.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for\u003cem\u003e Death Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"In the hours between dusk and dawn the lyric voice does not take respite. We go with our weary speaker from room to room as the owls preside over the sleepers and as those who sweep after the living do their daily rounds. In Sean Thomas Dougherty’s deft prose poems, sentence by sentence the speaker keeps vigil, watching over this fragile world. Over hospital intercoms we hear emphatic music urging those within earshot to listen and know that there are songs playing throughout the night. This is an exquisite collection.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eOliver de la Paz, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Boy in the Labyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Sean Thomas Dougherty is the great bard of the American working man. His voice is \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eunmistakable and his poems break the heart and heal it in the same poem, often in the same line.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOne of Sean’s great gifts as a poet is the empathy he extends to the broken world and to his \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ereader, so we always know exactly what he means. I go to Dougherty’s poems for consolation; \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehis enormous humanity gives me hope.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Franklin, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIf Some God Shakes Your House\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“In the prose poem ‘Magdalene’ Dougherty writes directly to the great saint: ‘Bearer of Unbearable  Griefs. Witness to the Resurrection.’ He then takes on the apostles who denied her full status and ends with ‘who of them could say they know anything of mercy?’ It's a question \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers The Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e presses continuously against the body of the reader. I have never read a book more relentless and fierce and vital in its asking of this question. No easy answer is forthcoming, but no reader can read \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e without having the full palpable weight of that question pressed into their consciousness.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Joe Weil, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backwards Year\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43986131943653,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/DeathPreferesTheMinorKey_CVR_LG.jpg?v=1679939030","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/death-prefers-the-minor-keys","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}