Poetry Thursday: Fathers and Other Strangers

iconic dad and salesman, Willy Loman

I've been thinking a lot about fathers, breadwinners, and fathers as breadwinners, which is what stirred yesterday's reposted Valentine to my dad.

The theme has been coming up in my teaching, too, with Sherman Alexie's wrenching work "Father Coming Home" at the forefront.

And anytime I think of poetry about fathers--about the grind of earning and making a living for the family--I think of Robert Hayden's superb "Those Winter Sundays."

Today's Poetry Thursday is devoted to a poem I discovered tonight in a similar vein, "Hard Times," by Michael Ryan. Here's the part that got me, Ryan's description of the pigs-in-blankets cooked for a meal to celebrate a new job:

They’re doom and shame and dumb pig fate.

I tell my mom I think they’re great.

Oh God. I have been at that dinner table. Repeatedly.

Happy breadwinning, everyone. Tomorrow's Friday. Time to feed the pig.

[with thanks to the Poetry Foundation]