Poems & Prayers

The collection’s emphasis on the importance of moving forward through obstacles makes the image of climbing uphill a natural visual metaphor. This imagery recurs several times in the poems, from literal description of treacherous terrain, to more symbolic evocations of mountains as the embodiment of goal-oriented struggle. 

In “Hills,” the hills described are both literal and symbolic. McConaughey writes in a note on the poem that he wrote it on a bike ride in Vietnam, when he was “halfway up an excruciating hill” on his way home. As he struggled his way up, he realized that hills are “just necessary parts of life’s terrain, there for the climbing” (103). The hills in the poem, in addition to their real-life existence, represent the challenges that life presents; they have to be overcome even though there are many of them. 

In “America, Yet,” mountains are used as a symbol of long-term potential for progress and the seeming impossibility of prevailing. Drawing on a metaphor made famous by Martin Luther King Jr., McConaughey describes the American dream as perched at the top of an inaccessible peak that must nevertheless be scaled: “The mountaintop we will never crest, yet continue to climb” (184).