Wesley McNair Photo by Doug Bruns

MERCER — With a plain-spoken tenderness, the story-like poems in Wesley McNair’s collection “Late Wonders: New & Selected Poems” celebrate the dreamers and the misfits, the small but hard-earned triumphs of everyday life. The new collection will be released on September 27. McNair will give a small series of in-person readings around the state.

This career-spanning collection gathers the McNair’s very best work from the past four decades alongside his newest poems. Since the publication of his first book nearly forty years ago, McNair has earned a reputation as an intimate observer and a poet of place—in these lucid, far-ranging poems, he proves his empathy and sense of place are endless. “Whole lives,” wrote Donald Hall of McNair’s work, “fill small lines.”

“Late Wonders” includes McNair’s masterful trilogy “The Long Dream of Home,” three long narrative poems written over the course of thirty years: “My Brother Running,” “Fire,” and “Dwellers in the House of the Lord.” The collection is published by Godine, McNair’s Boston-based publisher since 1989. The cover art is by revered Maine painter Linden Frederick.

McNair’s Maine appearances include Longfellow Books in Portland on Sept 27; the University of Maine’s Emery Hall on Oct 6; Graves Public Library in Kennebunkport on Oct 30; and the Waterville Public Library (in collaboration with Colby College) on Nov 8. More info on these events can be found at www.godine.com