Analyze the use of word play, parallelism, folksy diction, and other rhetorical devices in the collection. Do these verbal tricks align with meaning or obfuscate it? Why?

Consider McConaughey’s descriptions of sin and grace. How does his personal experience extend into the universal?

Discuss the influence of McConaughey’s career and fame on the framing of the poems. Where do you see his identity directly or indirectly shaping how he views the world?

How do the poems within the sections relate to the titles and stated themes of these sections? Are the categorizations straightforward, or do they change the meaning of poems that could have been placed in other sections?

Consider the way the collection merges the personal and the abstract. How do the poems connect an individual’s inner life with conceptions of the national, international, or even cosmological?

Contrast the poems’ often confessional nature with the collection’s interest in prescriptive advice. Do McConaughey’s admissions of failure help or hurt his intention to guide readers? Why?

Read McConaughey’s memoir, Greenlights, and compare it with the poem “Greenlights Intermezzo.” How does he transform his biography? What remains the same?

Explore physical and material desire. How does McConaughey both elevate and condemn sexual longing, ambition, and intoxication?