"Like the workers in his poems - Graveyard waitresses, steel men, hot tar roofers - \'whose art is perseverance, \' Maginnes the poet always shows up.
His \'people\' may be \'projects / half-finished, \' but he knows that \'monuments.
Tempted, he never quite surrenders to pessimism, always just beating the count, rising to the \'voice willing itself to go on, \' punching the Poetry card.
In poems where a trimmed fingernail means more than the moon, he casts a wary eye on America, but never disowns it. "Like the workers in his poems - Graveyard waitresses, steel men, hot tar roofers - \'whose art is perseverance, \' Maginnes the poet always shows up