Father Said: Poems - Hardcover

Sirowitz, Hal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1932360271 ISBN 13: 9781932360271

Publisher: Soft Skull, 2004

Synopsis

Father Said is the book fans of Sirowitz's Mother Said have been waiting for: after all, parents come in pairs. Hal's mother may have dominated the Sirowitz household with her overly-protective advice and flair for inducing Jewish guilt, but Mr. Sirowitz had a few bon mots to impart to his son as well. In FATHER SAID, he teaches Hal important lessons on "How to Be a Humanitarian," "The Meaning of Racism," "What to Do When You Burp," "Being a Good Citizen," "Why God Created Eve," "How to Avoid Being Idle," and "Taking Your Fun While You Can." Sounds like a typical dad, right? But Mr. Sirowitz's cautionary tales prove to be as idiosyncratic as his wife's. In FATHER SAID, Hal gives us a wonderfully funny and tender portrait of his dear old Dad, from childhood memories to his death from cancer. Fathers, mothers, and their sons and daughters everywhere will recognize something of themselves in the Sirowitz family--and while they laugh at their arguments and their nagging, they will also feel the love and familial affection running strongly through these poems. MOTHER SAID sold 20,000 copies and has been translated into nine languages. Both MOTHER SAID and MY THERAPIST SAID

About this title

About the Author

Hal Sirowitz is an internationally known poet and the author of five books of poetry: Mother Said; My Therapist Said; Before, During and After; Father Said; and Stray Cat Blues. His work has been translated into thirteen languages and published in many anthologies and magazines. He was awarded the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is also the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. Hal has performed and appeared on MTV’s "Spoken Word Unplugged"; Lollapalooza; Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival; the Helsinki International Poetry Festival; the Jerusalem Conference of Writers and Poets; PBS’s "Poetry Heaven"; NPR’s "All Things Considered"; PBS’s "The United States of Poetry" and "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. Hal is a retired New York City public school teacher. He lives with his wife, the writer Minter Krotzer, in Philadelphia.

Reviews

Mother Said, an earlier book of oedipal ventriloquism from Queens's mournful deadpan bard, was translated into nine languages. This follow-up collection continues to alchemize neurotic parental utterances into blank verse ditties of angsty epiphany. Sirowitz's "father" is full of lament. He compares the young Hal to ants ("I've never seen them being idle. I/ wish I could say the same thing about you"), and his daughter and wife similarly frustrate, yet he remains philosophical: "getting my share of the unhappiness" is "the price you pay for being human." Indeed, "The only/ good thing about dying is that I/ won't be around if something goes wrong./ You'll have to take care of it." Taken best in small doses, these dispatches of familial frustration remind us why one of Sirowitz's previous books is My Therapist Said. It helps to imagine Sirowitz (if you've ever heard him) reading these with nasal laconicism, so an audio version would be welcome.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Soft Skull
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932360271
• ISBN 13: 9781932360271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184