Set in Stone

Critic Reviews

When I think of a Kevin Carey poem, I think of Boston, and basketball, of poems carved out of the East Coast city where he has lived his life. In this, his third book, Carey has wrought arguably his finest work, including one of the most poignant poems of a friend’s suicide I have ever read. There are narratives here, list poems, lyrics, and elegies, a hint of Catholicism found in a mother’s rosary beads, a father praying after work, and the specificity of old Buicks and the Tobin Bridge. This is a book of powerful testaments that will offer any open reader, like in basketball, “that first good step” toward survival.

-Sean Thomas Dougherty, author of The Second O of Sorrow

In this collection, Carey examines the power of memory, the dreams we have, the praiseworthy moments, as well as the regrets that cling to us over a lifetime. Set in Stone shoots straight, with a voice that is natural and unaffected. You may see yourself in the small dark places of these poems, if you’re not too timid to look.

-Jeffrey Renard Allen, author of the novels Song of the Shank and Rails Under My Back