Download or read book Driving through the Country before You Are Born written by Ray McManus and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dark poems struggling to reconcile a haunting loss and troubled present Selected by Kate Daniels as the winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, Driving through the Country before You Are Born is the first collection of poetry from Ray McManus. The speaker in these poems searches for redemption and solace while navigating from a traumatic loss in the past to a present fraught with violence and self-destruction. The volume chronicles his attempt to glean some measure of forgiveness through acceptance of his own responsibly for his circumstances. The reader is called on to witness family stories without happy endings, landscapes on the verge of collapse, and prophetic visions of horrors yet to come. From these haunting visions, the only viable salvation is rooted in hope that, out of the ruins, there remains the possibility of a fresh beginning.