Shawn Callaway Hays’s Aurochs Maladaptive: New Enamels, New Cameos is a fierce, enigmatic beast of a collection - one that defies easy interpretation while luring you deeper in with its haunting mythologies, theological introspections, and fevered poetic flights. Through thirty-five formally unshackled poems, Hays tracks the footprints of extinct aurochs as they echo through our modern existential crises. The text throbs with the pulse of ancient ritual and postmodern dissonance, as each stanza weaves together elegy and exaltation, collapse and resurrection. This is no mild pastoral; it’s lyrical warfare, where references to Gautier, Yeats, and scripture are weaponized into fresh expression. We meet heroes, prophets, broken sons, spectral lovers, and mythic beasts, all navigating annihilation with defiance, sometimes tenderness, often a kind of holy lunacy. There’s a furious intelligence at play here, masked behind surreal images and ash-laced revelations. From “brain-eater sunflowers” to a pelican bleeding for its young, the symbolism is at once visceral and sacred.

Reading Shawn Callaway Hays’s Aurochs Maladaptive feels like decoding an illuminated manuscript written during a storm. The tone shifts from lament to liturgy, from Whitmanesque grandiosity to whispered confession. What strikes hardest is how the poems resist narrative closure, just like grief or faith. In "My Genesis Giraffe After September Absurd," we witness childhood collapse under the weight of national tragedy, while “Cave Veins in Acadia” unfolds like a mythical parable of empire and intoxication. These are not just poems; they’re reliquaries of meaning, relics from a personal and civilizational upheaval. Hays doesn’t write for comfort; he writes for transformation. And in doing so, Aurochs Maladaptive becomes a sacred thing: a bruised scripture for those brave enough to remember.

Aurochs Maladaptive by Shawn Callaway Hays is a visionary poetry collection that explores the tragic majesty of existence through mythic imagery, existential confrontation, and spiritual yearning. Drawing inspiration from the now-extinct wild oxen of Europe, the aurochs, Hays channels a primal force through thirty-five thematically connected poems that wrestle with annihilation, redemption, identity, masculinity, faith, and loss. The poems are rich with allusion, referencing Gautier, Milton, Whitman, and Yeats, yet maintain an original voice that is at once mournful and defiant. The language is operatic, lyrical, and sometimes elliptical, pulling the reader into intimate reveries before exploding into cosmic lament. Several standouts, including My Genesis Giraffe after September Absurd and Cave Veins in Acadia (as an Auroch at Lascaux), use historical and mythical metaphors to capture grief, memory, and the disintegration of innocence. Other poems, such as Requiem, layer biblical and Shakespearean motifs to offer apocalyptic critiques of civilization’s legacy.

Shawn Callaway Hays pushes form and voice to their edges, fusing theology, folklore, pop culture, and philosophy in ways that may challenge some readers but reward those attuned to symbolic density and poetic risk. The collection is not casual reading; rather, it is immersive, stylized, and intentionally complex, with experimental structure and stream-of-consciousness shifts that reflect both the grandeur and fragmentation of the modern psyche. This is a collection that speaks to readers of postmodern epic and spiritually charged poetry. Those who appreciate the ambitious scope of Anne Carson, the musicality of Hopkins, the thematic vastness of Blake, or the literary prowess of Subnivean may find Aurochs Maladaptive exhilarating.

Shawn Callaway Hays’s Aurochs Maladaptive: New Enamels, New Cameos is a poetry collection that explores the journey of identity, loss, and transformation through myth, history, and personal memory. The poems move between ancient and modern worlds, using the extinct aurochs as a symbol of the struggle to adapt and survive in a chaotic, ever-changing society. Hays weaves together references to Western philosophy, biblical stories, and pop culture, creating a tapestry of voices that reflect on love, grief, and the search for meaning. The narrative doesn’t follow a traditional format but instead offers a series of vivid, interconnected scenes and reflections, inviting readers to find their own path through its pages.

Shawn Callaway Hays’s writing is both lyrical and raw, with a style that is authentic and deeply personal. The poems are filled with imagery and allusion, yet the language remains accessible, making even complex ideas feel close to home. I found the pacing thoughtful, with each poem offering a new perspective or emotional turn, never lingering too long or feeling rushed. The themes of resilience, creativity, and the tension between past and present are handled with care and insight. Characters, whether mythical figures or everyday people, are portrayed with empathy and nuance. As someone who enjoys poetry that challenges and comforts at the same time, I appreciated how Hays balances philosophical questions with moments of simple beauty. Aurochs Maladaptive left me reflecting on my own experiences and the ways we all try to make sense of the world.

Aurochs Maladaptive: New Enamels, New Cameos by Shawn Callaway Hays is a collection of original poetry, varying widely in form and focus. In “Under Your Laurels,” the violent and liturgical tone loops through enjambed accusations, as the speaker details how they exploit another’s virtue to orchestrate and enjoy their suffering. “His Name was Ishmael and He Lost” unfolds at a grotesque and breath-packed pace, using surreal nautical imagery to place a terrified boy aboard a ship above a monstrous sea, with faith and family order disintegrating around him. “Not As the Scribes” blends theological assertion with recursive, poetic prose, framing Christ’s life as an embodied revision of history in which scripture becomes action and tragedy is overwritten. “Climbing Spiral Stairs” uses direct, metaphor-laden language in a confessional mode, describing a speaker who teaches survival while still carrying the effects of their own pain.

Aurochs Maladaptive by Shawn Callaway Hays is a sharply written collection that delivers consistently strong poetry with deliberate attention to structure and sound, in a visually impactful layout. Of all the nearly three-dozen pieces, two stood out most for me. In “Like Trees and the Books Made From Them,” the lines move in looping refrains that mimic the return of old pain. The elliptical phrasing perfectly matches Hays' portrayal of emotional collapse as something expected and seasonal. It doesn’t resolve; it accepts recurrence. “Ivy from The Village” draws from the film but reorients its focus with language that builds gradually, like a camera moving across a scene. Ivy’s movement through danger unfolds not in declarations but in the accumulation of small, clear moments that reshape fear. Overall, Hays' compilation is yet another of his best work, all of which left lasting impressions and are well worth reading in full. Very highly recommended.