Father Said: Poems [Hardcover]

Hal Sirowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 2004

Hal Sirowitz, the Poet Laureate of Queens, offers a funny and tender portrait of his father in this follow up to his acclaimed Mother Said and My Therapist Said. Sirowitz's mother may have dominated the household with her overly protective advice, but his father had a few bon mots to impart to his son as well. In Father Said, he teaches Hal important lessons such as "What to Do When You Burp" and "How to Avoid Being Idle." Mr. Sirowitz's cautionary tales are as idiosyncratic as his wife's: "When your mother tells me don't I think / it's time we got a better washing machine, / Father said, I tell her, Let it decide. / If it breaks down, we'll get a better one."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mother Said, an earlier book of oedipal ventriloquism from Queens's mournful deadpan bard, was translated into nine languages. This follow-up collection continues to alchemize neurotic parental utterances into blank verse ditties of angsty epiphany. Sirowitz's "father" is full of lament. He compares the young Hal to ants ("I've never seen them being idle. I/ wish I could say the same thing about you"), and his daughter and wife similarly frustrate, yet he remains philosophical: "getting my share of the unhappiness" is "the price you pay for being human." Indeed, "The only/ good thing about dying is that I/ won't be around if something goes wrong./ You'll have to take care of it." Taken best in small doses, these dispatches of familial frustration remind us why one of Sirowitz's previous books is My Therapist Said. It helps to imagine Sirowitz (if you've ever heard him) reading these with nasal laconicism, so an audio version would be welcome.
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Review

"Mr. Sirowitz has a style on the page ... of the young philip Roth."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press; First Edition edition (June 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932360271
• ISBN-13: 978-1932360271
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,388,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gems to be savored, August 28, 2004

By 

Larry Mark "editor of MyJewishBooks.com" (nyc) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Father Said: Poems (Hardcover)

Hal Sirowitz, the former Poet Laureate of Queens (who now lives in another boro), offers us this funny look at his father's sayings and life philosophy. It is a follow up to "Mother Said" and "My Therapist Said." Just as Sedaris is better read with a Carolina accent, these are better read with a dry, montone, slightly whiny Queens accent.

In one poem:
When your mother tells me don't I think /
it's time we got a better washing machine, /
Father said, I tell her, Let it decide. /
If it breaks down, we'll get a better one.

Or his father compares the young Hal to ants
("I've never seen them being idle. I /
wish I could say the same thing about you"),

He writes, "The only/ good thing about dying is that I / won't be around if something goes wrong./ You'll have to take care of it."

In "Saluting The Bull", Hal's father feels for the bull in a bullfight, one that did not deserve an early death after having a stranger wave its least favorite color in front of its face, trying to make it look silly. In "The Lost Friend", his father recounts a game of hide and seek, in which he never found his friend. He hopes one day, now decades later, that he will find him.

Nearly all are gems to be savored.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fathers universal, July 25, 2007

By 

Dennis Brightwell "psidoc" (Woodstock, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Father Said: Poems (Hardcover)

I did not grow up in New York; I grew up in Iowa. I am not Jewish; I was raised in a Baptist church. In spite of these cultural dissimilarities, I found so much to relate to in this book. Perhaps the position of fathers in families is more universal than one might think. All I know is that, when reading these poems, frequently I could hear my own father speaking, and that made me smile.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And after Mother passes away, Father gets a word in, December 19, 2005

By 

Hortensia Anderson "Hortensia Anderson" (nyc, ny, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Father Said: Poems (Hardcover)

and not edgewise. With the same neurotic quirkiness of the poems in his first volume, these poems delight with the difference manifested in the father-son relationship. Despite the brevity, Sirowitz manages to capture those funny, annoying, sad moments in tiny memories of intimate verbal exchanges. It is as if we had a chair, listening in the next room.