The Situation

by Skoyles, John

• ISBN13: 9780887484728
• ISBN10: 0887484727
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-09
• Publisher: Carnegie Mellon Univ Pr

Summary

The Situation addresses a wide array of subjects and concerns, among them, the deaths of close friends; neglected lives; and the struggles of love. Spiritual issues are also raised in poems that deal with and confront a deity. Another dimension of the collection comes from poems that are seriously at play with contemporary, historical and literary figures such as Emma Lazarus and Charles Schwab. A line from the title poem probably best summarizes the tone of the book: "That's life, isn't it, death?"

Table of Contents

I
Lottery	11
The Wish Mind	12
No Name for It	13
Whisper	14
Elegy	15
After a Death	16
In the Hospital	17
Apostrophe S	18
Ash	20
Ledger	21
Academic	23
Song of the Lost and Found	24
Fishing	25
Great Hollow Beach	27
Three Shards	28
II
Thou Sayest	31
The Garden	32
Lilacs	34
The Boy Whose Parents Drink	35
Mrs. Bristol and the Sailor	37
Speak	38
St. Bartholomew's Church	39
Giovanni Bertolotti	40
The Ghost of Emma Lazarus	41
Symptomatic	42
The Daughters of the Ticket Taker	43
Loves Me Not	44
In the Radiation Oncology Waiting Room	45
Prayer Without a God	46
Something	47
The Healer	48
The Situation	49
III
I Dreamt I Went to Hell With Charles Schwab	53
Uncle Dugan	54
Uncle Grossman	56
I Think Continually of Those Not Asked to Dance	57
Ghazal: My Way	58
Aisle 8	59
Atter Petrarch	61
Warmest Personal Regards	62
Tinnitus	63
Gardenia	64
Initials Written on a Screen Door in Dew	65
In the Air	66
Nothing More	68
Fate	69
Two Weeks in August	70
Here Comes One Now	71
Addendum	73