Dismal Rock

Poetry. DISMAL ROCK showcases a revisitation to the landscape of McCombs' youth on the tobacco farms of Kentucky. Initially chronicling events in local and family history, this collection of verse widens in scope until it includes subjects as diverse as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Elgin Marbles, John Keats, Bob Marley, fatherhood, and fishing. Several poems in this volume explore the grief McCombs feels over the loss of local culture as it resonates within the broader context of ecological destruction, imbuing the global with the undeniably personal.