Full Description
This debut collection by Cave Canem fellow Geffrey Davis burrows under the surface of gender, addiction, recovery, clumsy love, bitterness, and faith. The tones explored--tender, comic, wry, tragic--interrogate male subjectivity and privilege, as they examine their "embarrassed desires" for familial connection, sexual love, compassion, and repair. Revising the Storm also speaks to the sons and daughters affected by the drug/crack epidemic of the '80s and addresses issues of masculinity and its importance in family. Some nights I hear my father's long romance with drugs echoed in the skeletal choir of crickets. Geffrey Davis holds an MFA and a PhD from Penn State University. A Cave Canem fellow, Davis is the recipient of the 2013 Dogwood First Prize in Poetry, the 2012 Wabash Prize for Poetry, the 2012 Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize, and the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He currently teaches at the University of Arkansas.
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. The Book of Father
What I Mean When I Say Farmhouse 2
Revising the Storm, 1991 4
King County Metro 6
Instructions for a Third-Grade Report on Texas 8
What I Mean When I Say Chinook Salmon 10
The Epistemology of Birds 11
What I Mean When I Say My Name Is Nobody 13
Call Me Now 14
Unfledged 16
What I Mean When I Say Roller-Pigeon 18
What I Mean When I Say Elijah-Man 20
A Poem for God 22
More than Forgery 24
What I Mean When I Say Truck Driver 26
What My Father Might Say, If I Let Him Speak 27
My Last Love Poem for a Crackhead, #23 28
From the Unsent Letters: To Klamath Falls Correctional Facility 29
II. Diaspora
The Newakum River 32
Write the Memory of Throwing the Stone 33
Teaching Twelve-Year-Olds the Trail of Tears 34
Venison 35
How Can I Be 1/32nd Blackfeet? 36
If the Moon Were My Lover 37
What I Mean When I Say Diaspora (I) 38
What I Mean When I Say Diaspora (II) 40
The Epistemology of Hospitals 42
The Epistemology of Gentleness 43
The Epistemology of Marriage 44
Divorce Means 45
From 35,000 Feet / Praise Aviophobia 46
Meditation at a Pennsylvania Diner: Early Morning 47
Write the Memory of the Girl Dancing in Apple Blossoms 49
Modus Operandi, Ad Infinitum 50
6th Avenue Bouquets 52
III. Here a Coursing Wall, There a Slanted House
Building the Stones 54
What Returns 55
I Dream of Meeting Myself, Age Seven, County Fair Field-Trip 56
A Proposal from the Previously Divorced 58
The Epistemology of Rosemary 59
Farmer's Market Sweet Plums: Apology to the Flower Lady 61
Dear Destruction 62
Like This, For a Reason 63
Ode to Trout 65
What I Mean When I Say Forever 66
The Discipline of Waking Love 67
What We Set in Motion 68
The Epistemology of Preposition 72
Upriver, Downstream 73
Notes 74
Acknowledgements 75
