THE WOMAN IN HAPPY DOLLAR by Doug McHargue

$13.99

 

Although this is her first book, Doug McHargue is not new to poetry. Many of us have been waiting for this for years. As she gave readings and published individual poems in journals, we fell in love with her unique, Southern everywoman voice; with her O’Connoresque characters; with her always surprising yet somehow always familiar imagery; and with the deliciously layered psychological depth and complexity of her stories. Now, you can too! This is a read you will enjoy and come back to enjoy again.
–Scott Owens, author of “Thinking About the Next Big Bang in the Galaxy at the Edge of Town“

 

I have admired Doug McHargue‘s poems since I first encountered them in 1990. In her wonderful first book, The Woman in Happy Dollar, she expertly showcases, in precise, lyric language, her penchant for parsing out and cataloging the daily devotions, fractures, and rituals that celebrate and illuminate shared humanity: “How we lay down brooms / leave jobs and hats / and family at table / run to that shining white truck, / and it’s always driven / by angels …” These are fine poems, filled with epiphany, perfectly calibrated to the often imperceptible revelation of angels.

–Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate, 2012-2014

 

I have been lucky enough to hear Douglas McHargue read her poems many times. She has a wonderful, rich southern voice, the female equivalent of Ron Rash’s mournful, serious, wise, at times exultant one. Hers is a voice one might expect to hear at a covered dish supper or in this case in the aisle of a Happy Dollar Store. It is the perfect voice for this volume of poems: familiar, authentic, yet dreamy, and at times even surreal. McHargue’s exquisite poems will welcome and surprise readers, and this important volume of poetry is long overdue.

–Tim Peeler

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THE WOMAN IN HAPPY DOLLAR

by Doug McHargue

$13.99, paper

Doug McHargue has worked in a truck terminal, a dress shop, and served as a file clerk, Avon salesperson, receptionist, newspaper feature writer and public school teacher, and is grateful for the life lessons these experiences gave her.

Raised on a farm in Iredell Country, North Carolina, she attended Mitchell College and is a graduate of Appalachian State University.  She now lives in Catawba County where she is a regular reader at both Poetry Hickory and the ekphrastic Art of Poetry series at the Hickory Museum of Art.

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