Poetry. "In his stunning new book THE NAME MUSEUM, Nick McRae reminds us that every name is, finally, a museum, an elegy, a narrative, and that all narrative becomes translation of place and the collective voice of place sometimes 'mythic, bloody as a psalm.' McRae's formal control always certain, ever graceful, these poems fuse harshness, longing, loss, spirituality, and beauty with the 'sweat and rapture' of the very best poetry." Claudia Emerson "The hard evidence we gather from history and local lore, from tradition and experience, determines what we believe or so we are inclined by logic to believe. And yet we linger more over the truths that defy belief. It is a strange paradox but one Nick McRae finds everywhere he trains his vision. An email from God, an homage to a one-armed barber, snakes and trucks, saints and prophets: this is the grist of a wonderful book of poetry, half apocalypse and half love-song. It is also the work of a young poet skilled in his craft and clearly devoted to his art." Maurice Manning"