National Network for Equitable Library Service

Half wisecracking tour guide and half flirtatious trick, the poems in Shut Up Slow Down Let Go Breathe examine how we respond to overwork, anxiety, and overstimulation. McCann’s third collection speaks to a world that is too busy and too anxious, delivering the material with zero reverence and with loads of self-deprecating, disarming, observational—and sometimes catty—humour. Inviting readers to be his “bandmates / on life’s slutty bus tour,” Shut Up Slow Down Let Go Breathe marks a fresh new direction in Marcus McCann’s poetics.