[stylist] Poem - "Dad"

Fri Mar 21 20:48:24 UTC 2014

Jim

One, try slowing it down. Two, most poetry is meant to be heard, so I
think we are at an advantage to hear it out loud. You can also try
speaking it out yourself, smile.

I don't personally find troubles reading poetry with JAWS. It's really
no different than reading prose with a screenreader.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Homme,
James
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 1:17 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] Poem - "Dad"

Hi Bill,
This speaks to me of how we try to do what we are supposed to do, and I
think want to do: hold our fathers up in high esteem. It also causes me
to remember stories of my grandfather, whom my dad made out to be a
wonderful guy to us kids. I learned through others that Grandpap would
come home after spending his pay check on hard drinking to ten kids and
smash up the Christmas tree. That's what started the tradition of
putting up the tree right on Christmas Eve.

My grandfather loved to fish. When my grandparents went to live in
Florida after his retirement, he enjoyed that a lot.

I have trouble understanding poetry very well. I think part of it may be
that for me it is hard to listen to it with a screen reader. It's hard
to look at the form and to just read it. Does anyone have any tricks for
that?

Thanks.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
Houts
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 1:25 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] Poem - "Dad"

Hi Friends,

Here's a fairly recent piece; I think I wrote it last summer. Comments
welcome, as always.

--Bill

---

Dad

I

You're featured in half-dreams,

in photos, and rueful talk of those

who knew you well.

The fishing, the drinking, the drawings

of starlike ladies, half model

half matron, medusas:

those phantoms erotic, aborning

before my conception. I clasp

those time-shards, your fractional ghost

and grieve a father in fragments.

II.

O Isaac Oedipus Hamlet all,

you mythic sons of mythic ghosts,

your fathers loomed like shadows noir,

with murder, blindness, sacrifice;

your griefs were meant to teach,

and Dad, he read you all, a scholar drunk,

and joker king. I got my chops from him,

this poet thing, these bloody stones,

and gnaw upon his drunkard bones.

III.

He died of cirrhosis, a word which

sounds better than it wears.More drama than trauma:

a divorce in progress, I remember him faintly,

a hale sunlike presence who smoked and laughed,

whose breath smelled of adult mannish things:

rum, tobacco, authority suborned

by a sodden tongue. We neither smoke nor drink,

his gay thoughtful sons, and though

we love him, this muscular ghost,

there would have been rabid scenes; tears

as hot as LA streets, and feelings as hard.

 From heartwise depths some forty years on,

I toast him high, and kiss him gone.

IV.

Then there's thatphoto of you

on that flatboat, in sun-colored shorts

and a sun hero smile.

I was never so hot.
Even now the family girls

enlarge upon your gifts, your jokes, your

sun hero smile. But that photo again:

you raise a fish to the skies, to camer'as eye,

and nothing intrudes, no scolding, no law.

The world, says that shot, is happy

with you at its center: a sportsman king

with all his gear.IN heaven you hear,

I hope, my calloused grief some four

decades on and more.It's late for tears:

we only praise your sun-brightguile,

and that lake, the way

you posed, some hero thrice foretold:

one year, one day, like gold.

--
"Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."

           --Jane Siberry

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