Embedded Files
How to Fold Paper Dice:
1) Print on standard printing paper, then cut along the edges
2) Crease along every line, both the dotted and un-dotted
3) Add glue to tabs labeled "A," then fold sides "1" and "2" up to start forming cube shape
4) Add glue to remaining tabs, then carefully fold and lift sides "3" to complete your dice
5) Let dry.
6) Roll the dice again and again! or 6) Don't give into temptation, don't roll. or 6) Roll with moderation .
Rulebook for ToddFather's Mass for Shut-Ins:
Section-less sections. AKA, there are no sections but the book semi-behaves as though it has them. There is a lot of variety but the book could be sectioned like this:
1) midwest / grief / sex / marital issues / fading love >>
2) childhood / child-like persona / adolescence >>
3) alcoholism / AA >>
4) newfound sobriety / boredom / temptation / religion >>
5) sobriety / gratitude / spirituality / nature / hope >>
6) rekindling love / sex / marriage / vows / >>
There is a bit of a narrative arc here (substance abuse to sobriety, failing love to rekindling love, plus other threads), but this collection also fights the ideas of "an arc" and it does it wonderfully. In talking with Todd Robinson (ToddFather), he said that he liked to create an "unstable ground in the poem," he likes his poems to have an element of surprise--poems should "have coherence but keep [the reader] wobbly."
Kick order out the door! Just kidding, welcome it in for dinner but it sits at the kiddie table--wobbly takes its place and sits at the main dinner table
Mass for Shut-Ins has its obsessions, has structure, but "wobbly" is a good word for its movement. There are semi-sections present, but they all borrow from one another. Time fast forwards, flies back, stays in the present, throughout the collection, but even within the poems themselves.
"Can this [poem] hold? Can this hold water? Can this hold as a discrete entity?"
A poem (or writing in general) should "reward your attention," said Robinson. And this collection does just that. We learn this collection's obsessions, but each poem is a new approach, a reentry, a new angle, different emotion in a different place in a different time.
Roll to test your luck (and to cite a poem):
1) "Some Child's Wild Ride"2) "This Is a Good Day to Get Baked"3) "Like a Mooncalf Under Plastic Chili Pepper Lights"4) "Hard-Headed Mantra"5) "Up Through the Concrete"6) "the incredible future"
1) "Some Child's Wild Ride"2) "This Is a Good Day to Get Baked"3) "Like a Mooncalf Under Plastic Chili Pepper Lights"4) "Hard-Headed Mantra"5) "Up Through the Concrete"6) "the incredible future"
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse