death attend. But when the war is won, and life stares, hungry, in the parentsβ faces, where does that violence, anxiety, and shame go? The poems in Patter re-imagine miscarriages as minstrel shows, magic tricks, and comic strips; set Darth Vader against Oedipusβs dad in competition for βFather of the Year;β and interrogate the poetβs familyβs stint on reality TV. In this, his third collection, award-winning poet Douglas Kearney doggedly worries the line between love and hate, showing how it bleeds itself into βfatherhood.β
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