Airy, kinda-helpful-but-kinda-not ... McConaughey’s poems are filled with elliptical, self-cancelling statements that confuse wordplay with meaning ... It will do no good to wish there was more of that tart, dark directness in McConaughey’s poetry. His vibe is what it is: good whiskey and good cheer. If that appeals to you, try imbibing it in another form — listen to it. In the audiobook version of Poems & Prayers, McConaughey plainly delights in the messages his poems deliver, usually punctuating the titles or final lines with a chuckle or a whoop or an approving “mmmhmmm” and “yup.” Listening to him read, I nearly gave in.
Intimate ... Any writer who’s not a full-time poet should never, ever, under any circumstances, feel obliged to encumber his lines with rhyme ... So much in his book is memorable. It’s impressive that so successful a public figure keeps questioning his ambition and his pride ... His ideal reader, I suspect, is a good old boy in search of a buddy with a beer and a rowdy story to tell—exactly the kind of reader whom, in truth, too many books ignore.
Mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job. It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
