Sing Me a Song, She Said

In this, his tenth and perhaps final book of poems, Paul Mariani-acclaimed poet, biographer, critic and teacher-reflects on his life, returning in memory to the 1940s and ending some eighty-five years later with the present. No wonder, then, that so many of the poems strike an elegiac note, some with humor, some with sadness, some with wonder, some with regret-and all asking questions for which there are at best only further questions. Here are poems about growing up in the tenements of New York's East Side, poems about the erosion of his family on Long Island, elegies for those young and old who have passed, and all these years later, along the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts-his home for the past sixty years-poems reflecting on age and frailty as they take their toll, as he turns to faith and family to see himself through another day. In the midst of all this is the collection's central section: a verse drama about growing up in a fractured family back in the 1950s, as finally the poet tries to sing a song for his family and especially his mother, long gone now, who asked him to sing for her all those years ago, which he has tried to do while the sun sets and, blessedly, there's still time to sing. Read more