This work is profound. The poetry is deeply beautiful but strong, transforming, anything but sentimental.
-Kristen Joy Emack
-Kristen Joy Emack
YOU CANNOT BEAT THE TIDE BACK
ABOUT THE BOOK
During the first two years of the Coronavirus pandemic, I grappled with my father's dementia, my mother's struggle to care for him, and a sense of deep loss as the comfort of family was upended by illness and my father's death. These unphotographable feelings became poems, collected into a handmade chapbook. Inside the back cover is a tipped in photograph of my late father, William M. Ray, taken with my 4x5 camera outside the Marcel Breuer House in Wellfleet, MA, 2002; this photograph is referenced in the poem "Wellfleet":
What time is it now? The hour before your death?
In which we make amends and
celebrate you?
In which we find the photograph of you sitting
legs uncrossed on a blue chair, next to the blue wall
of the Breuer house, holding a glass of amber scotch
echoed by the August sky.
READ SELECTIONS
Haircut
Springing II
PURCHASE
Each chapbook is handmade and the $8 purchase price covers materials, printing, and shipping. If you are unable to afford this book, I am happy to gift it to you: please email me.
DOWNLOAD
In honor of the two year anniversary of my father's passing, a full pdf of the books is available to read here.
ABOUT THE BOOK
During the first two years of the Coronavirus pandemic, I grappled with my father's dementia, my mother's struggle to care for him, and a sense of deep loss as the comfort of family was upended by illness and my father's death. These unphotographable feelings became poems, collected into a handmade chapbook. Inside the back cover is a tipped in photograph of my late father, William M. Ray, taken with my 4x5 camera outside the Marcel Breuer House in Wellfleet, MA, 2002; this photograph is referenced in the poem "Wellfleet":
What time is it now? The hour before your death?
In which we make amends and
celebrate you?
In which we find the photograph of you sitting
legs uncrossed on a blue chair, next to the blue wall
of the Breuer house, holding a glass of amber scotch
echoed by the August sky.
READ SELECTIONS
Haircut
Springing II
PURCHASE
Each chapbook is handmade and the $8 purchase price covers materials, printing, and shipping. If you are unable to afford this book, I am happy to gift it to you: please email me.
DOWNLOAD
In honor of the two year anniversary of my father's passing, a full pdf of the books is available to read here.