Houston, Texas – November 4, 2024 – Press Release:
Saint Julian Press is proud to announce Kevin McGrath’s new book of poetry, ROMANCE – The Only Life, to be published on December 2, 2024. This contemplative poetry collection explores romance as a life-affirming force, weaving themes of connection, spirituality, and the beauty of ordinary moments. It unfolds like a whispered conversation between the poet and the ineffable. Kevin’s work takes a contemplative approach to romance—not merely as a sentiment reserved for lovers but as an elemental force shaping how we move through the world. Romance is the first of three books Saint Julian Press will publish as a legacy of Kevin’s life and work. The other two books are Causality In Homeric Song and Dionysos: Nature Without Instinct (forthcoming, 2025).
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Praise for ROMANCE - The Only Life
“Kevin McGrath's poetry surges with one of the rarest of forces: a vision. In McGrath's heart, the chaos of history is redeemed by a teleology, a motion toward fellowship, toward communion, toward love. The great man has left us, but his words live on, calling us to stand face to face and see the other world within this world, and to praise it.”
—Joseph Fasano
“Beautifully candid, each poem in Romance offers such a masterful clarity of perspective, that one can’t help but read and re-read each poem, in awe of how much life each line holds. Kevin McGrath’s masterpiece is a tapestry of love, friendship, and the essence of our human existence, woven into a backdrop of the steady progression of time.”
—Maryam Hiradfar
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“Kevin McGrath was such a wonderful person, mentor and poet/philosopher. Blessed to have spent so much time with him in our poetry group at Harvard ~ blessed to be able continue that loving relationship with his poetry.”
—Gary Geissler
“This is a journey of love, life’s most essential metaphor, through “the ardent force of time,” landscape and seascape, language and silence, the seasons of nature and of life. It is a powerful Gospel or Veda of love, and I will turn to its beautiful verses again and again.”
—Diana Eck
Romance: The Only Life unfolds like a whispered conversation between the poet and the ineffable. The collection takes a contemplative approach to romance—not merely as a sentiment reserved for lovers but as an elemental force shaping how we move through the world. The book’s title suggests that romance, in all its sprawling meanings, might just be the central current that makes life worth living.
Divided into a series of compact, numbered poems, Romance resists the temptation to over-explain or embellish. The poems, often spare in language, invite the reader to pause, reflect, and find resonance in what is unsaid. This restraint has a quiet power as the collection meanders through themes of connection, spirituality, and the sensuality of existence, offering glimpses rather than declarations. Each poem, pared down to its essential elements, feels like a small meditation—on a moment, a relationship, a thought.
This is not a book of love poems, at least not in the conventional sense. The romance here is larger, encompassing our relationship with nature, the divine, and the self. It’s the romance of being alive, noticing, and breathing into the spaces where life unfolds unexpectedly. These poems suggest that romance is not something we find; it is something we cultivate, an ethos to carry through the day.
And yet, there is intimacy here. The poet speaks directly as if leaning in, revealing these truths delicately. There is no grandiosity, no sweeping declarations, just the simple act of observing the world with an open heart. It invites the reader to slow down, listen more closely, and rediscover the beauty in the ordinary.
For readers accustomed to poetry that drips with overt emotion or elaborate form, Romance: The Only Life may feel like a reprieve. Its understated style allows for a deeper engagement with the subject matter, as though each poem is merely a doorway to something much larger—a feeling, a memory, a revelation. This book doesn’t ask to be understood so much as experienced.
In the end, Romance offers its readers a gift: a chance to find the extraordinary in the everyday, to see romance as a way of being rather than an outcome to chase. It is a quiet, beautiful collection that speaks to those who understand that the most profound connections often arise from the simplest moments.
Divided into a series of compact, numbered poems, Romance resists the temptation to over-explain or embellish. The poems, often spare in language, invite the reader to pause, reflect, and find resonance in what is unsaid. This restraint has a quiet power as the collection meanders through themes of connection, spirituality, and the sensuality of existence, offering glimpses rather than declarations. Each poem, pared down to its essential elements, feels like a small meditation—on a moment, a relationship, a thought.
This is not a book of love poems, at least not in the conventional sense. The romance here is larger, encompassing our relationship with nature, the divine, and the self. It’s the romance of being alive, noticing, and breathing into the spaces where life unfolds unexpectedly. These poems suggest that romance is not something we find; it is something we cultivate, an ethos to carry through the day.
And yet, there is intimacy here. The poet speaks directly as if leaning in, revealing these truths delicately. There is no grandiosity, no sweeping declarations, just the simple act of observing the world with an open heart. It invites the reader to slow down, listen more closely, and rediscover the beauty in the ordinary.
For readers accustomed to poetry that drips with overt emotion or elaborate form, Romance: The Only Life may feel like a reprieve. Its understated style allows for a deeper engagement with the subject matter, as though each poem is merely a doorway to something much larger—a feeling, a memory, a revelation. This book doesn’t ask to be understood so much as experienced.
In the end, Romance offers its readers a gift: a chance to find the extraordinary in the everyday, to see romance as a way of being rather than an outcome to chase. It is a quiet, beautiful collection that speaks to those who understand that the most profound connections often arise from the simplest moments.
—Ron Starbuck, Publisher
Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Saint Julian Press, Inc.
In the afterword, Kevin included in Romance, he described his work in these words. “What is sovereign in this poetry is the vision that is compressed and compounded by the presence and complete agency of metaphor in this world: metaphor being our only source of action and its superlative condition of love being our one act of potential freedom in life. It is our awareness of death which drives this appeal and impetus of metaphor, for there we do not repeat or imitate but we move away from what we know and have received and travel towards a new and impersonal universe of nature.” —Kevin McGrath, October 2023
KEVIN MCGRATH was born in southern China in 1951 and educated in England and Scotland. He lived and worked in France, Greece, and India. He was an associate of the Department of South Asian Studies and poet laureate at Lowell House, Harvard University. McGrath lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his family.
Publications include Fame (1995), Lioness (1998), Maleas (2002), The Sanskrit Hero (2004), Flyer (2005), Comedia (2008), Stri (2009), Jaya (2011), Supernature (2012), Heroic Krsna and Eroica (2013), In The Kacch and Windward (2015), Arjuna Pandava and Eros (2016), Raja Yudhisthira (2017), Bhisma Devavrata (2018), Vyasa Redux (2019), Song Of The Republic (2020), Fame (2023), On Friendship (2024), Romance – The Only Life (2024), Causality In Homeric Song (forthcoming 2025) and Dionysos: Nature Without Instinct (forthcoming 2025).
Publications include Fame (1995), Lioness (1998), Maleas (2002), The Sanskrit Hero (2004), Flyer (2005), Comedia (2008), Stri (2009), Jaya (2011), Supernature (2012), Heroic Krsna and Eroica (2013), In The Kacch and Windward (2015), Arjuna Pandava and Eros (2016), Raja Yudhisthira (2017), Bhisma Devavrata (2018), Vyasa Redux (2019), Song Of The Republic (2020), Fame (2023), On Friendship (2024), Romance – The Only Life (2024), Causality In Homeric Song (forthcoming 2025) and Dionysos: Nature Without Instinct (forthcoming 2025).
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Download the PDF Press Release
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Publication Date: December 2, 2024
Paperback: $18.00 Publisher: Saint Julian Press, Inc. Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-40-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2024948742 Paperback: 90 pages For a PDF Advance Copy, contact Ron Starbuck. |
Available Through – Bookshop.org ~ Ingram Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound
Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC. © 2022
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As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.