Before You Become Improbable

by Nick DePascal

Overview

2013 Winner of the West End Poetry Prize for a first volume

"If poetry can be prayer, this book is indeed a praise song to the foibles of modern life. From the humorous dissections of corporate life to the wry and tender takes on marriage, these poems are 'hymns to beauty' of the everyday: funny, profane, profoundly moving."—Lisa D. Chávez, author of In an Angry Season

This debut poetry collection tackles issues as various as marriage, parenting, death, art, illness, the home, and the workplace, viewing the everyday through a magical and surreal lens. The poems coalesce naturally around cycles of the seasons and emotions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780991074235
Publisher:	West End Press
Publication date:	08/15/2014
Pages:	52
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Born in Tucson, Arizona, Nick DePascal lives in Albuquerque with his wife and son, three dogs, and three chickens. He teaches English at the University of New Mexico.

Table of Contents

Family Like a Pack of Wild Dogs 1

Autumn in an Old House 2

And then I drove until the car ran out of gas 3

Fat Banker 4

Wife's Monologue on the Occasion of a Seventh Wedding Anniversary 5

Beatrice's Lament 7

Awards Committee 8

Winter in an Old House 10

Airport Elegy 11

Sex in Old House 13

Vanity 14

And then I painted myself with a halo 16

Husband's Monologue on the Occasion of a Seventh Wedding Anniversary 17

While My Son Sleeps in a Cradle Next to Our Bed 18

Night in an Old House 20

Winter in Hartford 21

52 Horses 22

Late Winter Sonnet 24

Artifacts 25

Cathedral 26

Day in an Old House 27

The Contract 28

Spring in an Old House 29

Fragments 30

Synergy 32

Syncopation 33

Bonds 35

Form 36

Hymn to a Hot City 37

And then I woke up under water Loser's Almanac 39

Pathology 42

Summer in an Old House 43

Visiting Hours 44

And then I read Moby Dick with my eyes closed 46

Letter to a Sick Friend 47

Entry ways 48

Song 51

And then I started living in the movies 52