Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon: Poems from my 10-year bender inside heaven’s dive bar

Product Description

Stifled creativity. Midlife mediocrity. Explore nitty-gritty struggles as viewed through the lens of whiskey, beer, and down-to-earth verse.
Any man might turn to his neighborhood bar after misfortune pays a visit. But when oppressive jobs, self-loathing, and a tall glass of liquid comfort strike at an artistic soul, they can trigger something truly unique. In this straightforward set of poems, a blue-collar worker stuck in a white-collar world brings the average Joe’s daily frustrations to life in a raw and tongue-in-cheek voice.
Inspired by his decade-long bender at a local watering hole, a BA in Creative Writing and the poetry of Charles Bukowski, Randall McNair channels his malaise into witty, quirky, and above all, honest observations on the human condition. From a simple love of the female form to the heartbreaking loss of beloved family, this volume follows the ups-and-downs of an ordinary existence. If you’ve ever experienced a mundane tragedy, McNair’s reflections on hated professions, the salve of alcohol, and how to face death will resonate.
Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon is a refreshing collection of poems for people who hate poetry. If you like exploring the drunken mind, unpretentious writers, and folksy language, then you’ll adore Randall McNair’s levelheaded lines.
Buy Dispatches from the Swinging Door Saloon to drown your sorrows in verse today!

Review

The poet Randall McNair invites us to have fun. To take life as it comes, to have a beer with a friend, to enjoy the plain words of our natural speech, to laugh. The writing is so clear and so easy to understand you wonder if it’s really poetry. Little by little you realize it is. Poetry in its elemental state, written to be understood – with splashes of humor along the way. Try writing this clearly and after blood has dripped down your brow into your eyes, you’ll discover this may be the highest art.
Poem after poem lays out a precious gift – the gift of a person. And we’re invited into the simple house where he lives. We’re not ushered around back with the servants, or made to trudge through a tangled meadow of self-reflection, or to stand in a long line with a forty-thousand dollar check timed over four years to buy an MFA. We’re brought to the front entrance with the welcome mat at our feet and the door wide open.
“sometimes a wet dog

just wants to be a wet dog,

without being reminded

that he is a wet dog.”

To enjoy these poems you don’t have to be in a bar, either, lifting a pint. But it might help. Look to your left, over death’s shoulder, and you’ll see the ghost of McNair’s mentor, Charles Bukowski, chuckling over his fifty-thousandth beer.
Clive Matson, author of Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye and Let the Crazy Child Write!
The perfect setting to read this book is where it was written – in a dimly lit neighborhood pub with lots of character and characters. The delightfully twisted inner recesses of Randall McNair’s brain will nourish your soul and senses while tickling your funny bone.
Glenn Stickley, Producer, Emmy Award winner for The Amazing Race
Get yourself a stiff drink and take a wry romp through the immeasurable pleasures and pains of first-time published, long-time poet, Randall McNair. You’ll be mighty glad you did.
Michael Lucker, Screenwriter, Lecturer of Film Studies, Author of Crash! Boom! Bang! How to Write Action Movies

From the Author

Thank you for checking out my debut book of poetry. It is my hope that you will find yourself smiling/cringing/crying while reading through its pages, much as I did when writing them there at the Swinging Door Saloon.

Here’s a tilt of the mug to that unique feeling of being alive, which comes from surviving the mundane against all odds.  And a tilt as well to a whole new genre of poetry, one I affectionately call Poetry of the Absurd.

Finally, here’s a big thanks to Charles Bukowski for his countless books of poetry, his keen wit and laugh-at-the-gods