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dessa's review against another edition
5.0
Another Poem About My Father
I don’t get poetry either. Mostly I get cavities,
ad mail. Once, I got eleven hundred dollars
in small change from my father for Christmas.
He said, you’ve got to work for your money-
meaning you’ve got to haul it through six feet
of snow to the bank, good luck, here’s a bag.
My father is more like a poem than most poems
are. He once tucked a living loon into his coat
and brought it home to amuse my mother who
loves birds, especially surprised-sounding birds,
especially owls. My nostalgia receptors zigzag
wildly through me when I think of my father
pushing his metal detector across all the parks,
school yards, and riverbanks of this great nation,
waving it back and forth – like some sort of
yaywho, my mother would say – until it beeps
solemnly above a nickel. With a butterknife
he cuts such slender metaphors from the earth.
I don’t get poetry either. Mostly I get cavities,
ad mail. Once, I got eleven hundred dollars
in small change from my father for Christmas.
He said, you’ve got to work for your money-
meaning you’ve got to haul it through six feet
of snow to the bank, good luck, here’s a bag.
My father is more like a poem than most poems
are. He once tucked a living loon into his coat
and brought it home to amuse my mother who
loves birds, especially surprised-sounding birds,
especially owls. My nostalgia receptors zigzag
wildly through me when I think of my father
pushing his metal detector across all the parks,
school yards, and riverbanks of this great nation,
waving it back and forth – like some sort of
yaywho, my mother would say – until it beeps
solemnly above a nickel. With a butterknife
he cuts such slender metaphors from the earth.
queenstaves's review against another edition
4.0
You will gladly thank this book for sliding a knife between your ribs. It does it gently and with extraordinary volume. I love it.
dfparizeau's review against another edition
5.0
Any poet who wishes to write about family, should read this book. Czaga approaches the task with great care and honesty, creating images of complex characters and relationships that will lead you pleading for more.
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