6/15/2013

For Fathers Present and Absent

Photo by aloalo, via The Tyee

My long poem, "Lyric", which was originally published as a chapbook by the Alfred Gustav Press and then again in my collection The Other Side of Ourselves, has found a third home today in a Tyee article article by Fiona Tinwei Lam about fathers (tomorrow being Dad Day, and all):

For Fathers, Present and Absent

Fiona and I lost our fathers at more-or-less the same age, and in the article Fiona speaks very openly and thoughtfully about her own experience before exploring a few poems that speak of fatherhood, including excellent poems by Philip Levine, Evelyn Lau and Russel Thornton. "Lyric" is included, in full (all 110 lines of it - thanks to the editors at The Tyee for granting the extra space!), on the second page of the article.

Thank you so much to Fiona for the inclusion of my poem - it's a great honour to have "Lyric"  included in such an article, and to have it be in such fine company.

p.s. If you're interested in "Lyric", or in my thoughts on writing about loss, you can read the afterword I wrote for the Lyric chapbook here.

p.p.s. Happy Father's Day, all!

1 comment:

Neblina said...

Hey Rob,

Thank you for this. I think I healed a lot after writing a poem about my father's passing on my blog called 'To Love a Man' http://jazbieh.blogspot.ca/
(May 2012)

It was super personal, but I got over it. Poetry was the best option, not only a 'good one'.

Take care,

Shahdin