Photograph

This item is a photograph of the poet when he was a young man. The poet uses it to create a written image that is based upon the fleeting moment captured by the camera. Part of the image of youth, of course, is that here is a man, quite possibly a single man who is not a father. Here is a soldier dressed in a uniform. Here is a man who is young enough that his son, who was a grown man at the time of writing the poem, can see in himself...It is the search in the father for a peer, or for himself, and for a friend over and above his role as the father.

The Sky

The sky first appears as both an object and a place in the book's first chapter. It is in the opening line. This recurs. The sky is...