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Priase for Before, During and After by Hal Sirowitz
"Hal Sirowitz is the Bard of the dead-pan delivery. His poems are like a mad combination of the Haiku and the Borscht Belt—they make me laugh and smile with happiness at the pain of being alive. But that's better than crying and wincing! From the bar to the bedroom to the break-up, these poems are pure genius!" —Jonathan Ames, author of What's Not to Love?
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| "Hal Sirowitz has found a language to express the dumbfounded pause that occurs between two people when they are confusing one another about important matters. Whether between two lovers, or a son and a mother, that pause is like a physical space. Sirowitz has made it his project to translate that space into words. He keeps shooting them out relentlessly, in different configurations, often with haiku like brevity, and these configurations are always imbued with the comedy and sadness of hope." —Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Overt Artist and Seduction Theory
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| "Hal Sirowitz's poems are wildly funny with an aftertaste of heartache—radiantly clear but haunted by the unspoken. His compressed plots unfold in the subconscious at warp speed. Beautifully grounded in specifics, this is transcendent writing." —Dennis Nurkse, author of The Fall and The Rules of Paradise |
| "Before, During & After is sad, hilarious and so true it makes me ashamed to be a broad. Hal Sirowitz knows women the way some guys know box scores, and he recounts his tail tales with what has become his signature style: deadpan grace." —Amy Sohn, author of Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell and Run Catch Kiss | |
Father Said
Poems
Hal Sirowitz
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| Cloth | 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 | 180 pgs. | ISBN: 1-932360-27-1 | List: $23.00 | 06/1/2004 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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About the book: Father Said is the book fans of Hal Sirowitz's international best-seller Mother Said have been waiting for: after all, parents come in pairs. Hal's mother may have dominated the Sirowitz household with her overly-protective advice and flair for inducing Jewish guilt, but Mr. Sirowitz had a few bon mots to impart to his son as well. In Father Said, he teaches Hal important lessons on "How to Be a Humanitarian," "The Meaning of Racism," "What to Do When You Burp," "Being a Good Citizen," "Why God Created Eve," "How to Avoid Being Idle," and "Taking Your Fun While You Can." Sounds like a typical dad, right? But Mr. Sirowitz's cautionary tales prove to be as idiosyncratic as his wife's.
Sirowitz creates a wonderfully funny and tender portrait of dear old Dad, from childhood memories to his death from cancer. Fathers, mothers, and their sons & daughters everywhere will recognize something of themselves in the Sirowitz family—and while they laugh at the arguments and nagging, they will also feel the love and familial affection running strongly through these poems.
About the author: Hal Sirowitz is the Poet Laureate of Queens, New York and is the recipient of a Frederick Delius Award, the Susan Rose Recording Grant for Contemporary Jewish Music, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a 2003 New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His book Mother Said has been translated into nine languages. Sirowitz has performed on MTV's Spoken Word Unplugged, PBS's Poetry Heaven, and NPR's All Things Considered, Studio 360, and the Leonard Lopate Show, as well as on numerous stages across the country. Sirowitz is also the best selling translated poet in Norway, where Mother Said has been adapted for the stage and has been made into a series of animated cartoons. His poems have been included in dozens of anthologies such as Garrison Keillor's Good Poems, Billy Collins's Poetry 180, Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast, Poetry after 9/11, and 110 Stories: Writers Respond to 9/11. Sirowitz was a special education teacher for the New York City public schools for twenty-three years. Hal is married to the writer Minter Krotzer.
This author is on tour: Come to Hal's launch party, Father's Day, June 20th 5pm at the Bowery Poetry Club. See the Events page for details! |
