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1994. 80 pages.
0896723410
978-0-89672-341-2
$16.50 cloth
Coming soon: online ordering! In the meantime, please call 800.832.4042 or 806.742.2982 to order.
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The Tongues of Men and of Angels By Robert A. Fink
This probing book of poetry is structured around one man's quest for healing and salvation. From his high school years in Texas during the early 1960s through his college teaching career 30 years later, the male persona of these poems searches for his lost father, for forgiveness and faith, for love and family.
Throughout the collection, seven poems trace events from Saint Paul's quest for healing, proving a complement to the struggles of the contemporary man. The miracle that is life is chronicled here in terse and moving poems.
The Vietnam Vet Looks for His Sons at Summer Basketball Camp
Basketballs drum the floor.
A hundred hearts race up and down the court.
Intent as salmon leaping up the falls,
these middle schoolers drive for backboards,
spin lay ups through the hoops.
Young men on the evening news
slam chunks of metal down a pipe
they aim toward towns
where other boys draw circles in the dirt,
spill out their bags of marbles.
"Vivid and touching . . . from Vietnam to North Hollywood, from Abilene to Damascus [Fink] lay[s] permanent claim to a wide territory."—X. J. Kennedy
Why Is It
!951, His Father Squeezed His Arm
Summer of '67
For this Cause
Following a Sharp Disagreement, Barnabas Breaks From Paul, Sails With Mark to Cyprus
And Who Shall Separate Us?
After Athens, Paul Refuses to Use the Devices of Greek Philosophy
Rotation
Woodbridge, Virginia
The Unfurnished Apartment Overrun, He Calls a Napalm Strike Upon His Position
Let Each Man Abide
First House
Paul Shares His Secret
What It Takes
In Training
The Assistant Professor Considers His Options
How He Came to Write Poetry
Speaking in Tongues: The Calling
Courtly Love
At Eighteen
Last Words
Hitting Fungoes After the Funeral
Saul Tries to Explain How Hard It Was for the Apostles to Believe His Conversion
The Beach Boys Claimed an Angel Stirred the Waters
Marathon
Wax Not After the Lusts of Deceit
The Ex-Grunt Writes His Last Letter to His Former Professor
A Common Dream
Paul Performs a Miracle
Homecoming
The Hot Corner
The Vietnam Vet Looks for His Sons at Summer Basketball Camp
Nearing the End of His Journey, Paul Considers What Comfort He Has Brought His Friends
Procreation
Touch
The Poet Already Missing His Sons
Breakdown
Welcome Home, Stranger
Paul Completes the Path to Sainthood
St. Francis of Abilene
The Writer-In-Residence Interrupts My Scheduled Run
Just Off Beulah Street
Laying on of Hands
To My Sons On Father's Day
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