Family Gathering [Hardcover]

Fred Chappell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Though the extended family has given way to the nuclear family, for some folks the extended family lives and thrives. In this new collection, Chappell (Spring Garden; The World Between the Eyes) reveals the security and intimacy afforded by an extended family, in which each member "recognizes what we are, yet holds us in affection." The speaker of the poems is an observer, recording "the buzz and stutter,/ Rasp and rattle of family" that unfold around him. Formal in design, the poems use rhyme and off rhyme effectively; the regular rhythms change tempo to avoid monotony, and strong imagery appears throughout. While not presenting a continuous story line, the witty poems in this volume do disclose a family and all of its secrets, quirks, traditions, conflicts, victories, births, and deaths. Readers are carried "downstream in time, gesticulating, shouting,/ alarmed by a force you never knew before." Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.DTim Gavin, Episcopal Acad., Merion, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Light verse seldom comes much better than these snapshots in rhyme. Their occasion seems to be a family reunion, during which everyone wanders about getting reacquainted while trying to keep faces straight and tongues civil. Of course, the poet has the "camera," and even if he lets it be turned on him in "The Traitor," he has the last image. Here's Uncle Einar, whose way with gold, both minted and coiffed on the heads of young women, has enriched his wife; she explains in "Aunt Wilma Reveals Her Cunning Design." Here's a dual portrait of swishy cousin Willoughby and manly cousin Burke, who despise one another, though one does so on the basis of a "Mistaken Premise." Here's the family "Photographer," who "makes us look as scary / As old woodcuts in a bestiary," rather like her poem-scribbling kinsman. Tender yet guarded gazes at eight-year-old Elizabeth open and close this poem-gallery that amuses as much as Masters' Spoon River Anthology, though it is far less mordant and far funnier. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 72 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080712625X
• ISBN-13: 978-0807126257
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,433,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FAMILY GATHERING a Delight, February 28, 2001

By 

Kathryn S. Byer (Cullowhee, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Family Gathering: Poems (Paperback)

Fred Chappell, one of our modern poetic masters, has given us a book that brings its reader no-holds-barred pleasure. Chappell renders his family portraits with wit and craft, using rhyme, for example, that makes us sit up and take notice, lift our ears, ready for more. This book is a loving, though sometimes caustic and, yes, sly, evocation of family. We finish reading it feeling as if we know these people, indeed have always known them. Chappell invites us onto the front porch, into the kitchen, the parlor, the upstairs and downstairs of a dwelling populated by an extended family as eccentric and memorable as our own.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Poetry, November 7, 2004

By 

J. Newberry (Tifton, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family Gathering: Poems (Paperback)

*Family Gathering* is a rare gift: a book that one can share with others.

I first read the book after encountering some of Chappell's other poetry and prose and hearing him read at a conference. Making full use of rhyme and structure, Chappell weaves a tale of some kind of family gathering--the occasion isn't important. The fact that the family has congregated together is. Framed by poems about a young girl who can't understand's adults' need to talk everything to death at such gatherings, Chappell's book roams from person to person, introducing us to characters like Uncle Einar, a likable blow-hard who "smokes his big cigar." We also meet his wife, Aunt Wilma, who "makes him pay" for every mistake the old philanderer commits. We meet others as well, some named and some not. The strength of this approach is obvious: we all have these people in our families. We all know an Uncle Einar; we all have at least one outcast cousin; we all have that one aunt at our reunions who insists on taking everyone's picture.

Chappell's poems are laugh-out-loud funny, a rarity these days when poetry tends to be about little but itself.

*Family Gathering* is a book you can buy for those non-poetry poeple on your gift list. It'll show them that poetry can indeed be for everybody and needn't be an exclusive, elitist pursuit.