In this, his
tenth and perhaps final book of poems, Paul Mariani?acclaimed poet, biographer,
critic and teacher?reflects on his life, returning in memory to the 1940s and
ending some eighty-five years later with the present. No wonder, then, that so
many of the poems strike an elegiac note, some with humor, some with sadness,
some with wonder, some with regret?and all asking questions for which there are
at best only further questions.
Here are poems
about growing up in the tenements of New York's East Side, poems about the
erosion of his family on Long Island, elegies for those young and old who have
passed, and all these years later, along the Connecticut River in western
Massachusetts?his home for the past sixty years?poems reflecting on age and
frailty as they take their toll, as he turns to faith and family to see himself
through another day.
In the midst of
all this is the collection's central section: a verse drama about growing up in
a fractured family back in the 1950s, as finally the poet tries to sing a song
for his family and especially his mother, long gone now, who asked him to sing for
her all those years ago, which he has tried to do while the sun sets and,
blessedly, there's still time to sing.
