Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The 13th Sunday After Pentecost: Poems

The 13th Sunday After Pentecost: Poems

Bathanti, Joseph

Paperback

Series: Voices of the South

General Poetry

Publisher Price: $20.95

ISBN10: 0807164615
ISBN13: 9780807164617
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: Oct 12 2016
Pages: 88
Weight: 0.25
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English

In The 13th Sunday after Pentecost, Joseph Bathanti offers poems that delve deep into a life reimagined through a mythologized past. Moving from his childhood to the present, weaving through the Italian immigrant streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to his parochial school, from the ballpark to church and home again, these contemplative poems present a situation unique to the poet but familiar to us all.

As Bathanti recalls the joys, struggles, and confusion of his formative years in the late fifties and into the sixties, he gains a deeper understanding of the often surreal, always paradoxical world around him. He explores the perceived injustices of childhood, observes the mysteries of religious rituals, and examines the complex emotions families experience as children grow up and parents grow old. These poems divulge an eventful life, compelling us to reflect on our own as we confront a world of wonder and uncertainty.

Across the strike zone swoops a dove,

maybe an angel. You're in Pittsburgh,

March; it's snowing. All week

you've seen angels; everyone's tired,

proclaiming even horrid things angels,

intimating miracles. Johnson's pitch

obliterates the bird--

a hail of feathers and dander,

as if inside a tiny bomb detonated.

Like a cartoon. Thoroughly unbelievable.

Around you, people are dying.

But you ignore it.

You laugh at the massacred dove.

It's not funny, but you laugh.

You could cry, rip your hair out, your clothes off,

crash through the seventhfloor window

into the slushy black streets of the city.

It's funny because it's not.

--from Angels

Also in

General Poetry

View All