Description: Bringing the Shovel Down is a re-imagination of the violent mythologies of state and power. "These poems speak out of a global consciousness as well as an individual wisdom that is bright with pity, terror, and rage, and which asks the reader to realize that she is not alone--that the grief he carries is not just his own. Gay is a poet of conscience, who echoes Tomas Transtromer's 'We do not surrender. But want peace.'"--Jean Valentine
Review Quotes: With language wholly his own, sparkling clean and tender, Bringing the Shovel Down exposes a dark marriage of love and violence from which one cannot turn away.-- "Foreword Magazine"