Titled after one of the side effects of antidepressants, Unusually
Grand Ideas is a poignant account of clinical depression and the
complications it introduces to marriage and fatherhood. James Davis
May's poems describe mental illness with nuance, giving a full account
of the darkness but also the flashes of hope, love, and even humor that
lead toward healing. In pieces ranging from spare lyrical depictions of
pain to discursive meditations that argue for hope, May searches for
meaning by asking the difficult but important questions that both
trouble and sustain us.