Father Said: Poems

by Hal Sirowitz

Father Said is the book fans of Sirowitz's Mother Said have been waiting after all, parents come in pairs. Hal's mother may have dominated the Sirowitz household with her overly-protective advice and flair for inducing Jewish guilt, but Mr. Sirowitz had a few bon mots to impart to his son as well. In FATHER SAID, he teaches Hal important lessons on "How to Be a Humanitarian," "The Meaning of Racism," "What to Do When You Burp," "Being a Good Citizen," "Why God Created Eve," "How to Avoid Being Idle," and "Taking Your Fun While You Can." Sounds like a typical dad, right? But Mr. Sirowitz's cautionary tales prove to be as idiosyncratic as his wife's. In FATHER SAID, Hal gives us a wonderfully funny and tender portrait of his dear old Dad, from childhood memories to his death from cancer. Fathers, mothers, and their sons and daughters everywhere will recognize something of themselves in the Sirowitz family--and while they laugh at their arguments and their nagging, they will also feel the love and familial affection running strongly through these poems. MOTHER SAID sold 20,000 copies and has been translated into nine languages. Both MOTHER SAID and MY THERAPIST SAID

Genres: Poetry

184 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Hal Sirowitz has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship is a 2003-2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. In 2001, Sirowitz was named Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His poems have been widely anthologized in collections such as Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems and in Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast. He has performed on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged, PBS’s Poetry Heaven, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Garrison Keillor has read Sirowitz’s work on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac. Sirowitz works as a special education teacher for the New York City public schools.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is not as pants-wettingly funny as Mother Said, but there are some goodies here.

What We Can Learn from Ants

You shouldn't kill an ant,
Father said, unless you absolutely
have to. They have as much right
to the backyard as you. In fact,
they have more. Their ancestors
were here before ours even got
on the boat. You should learn
to respect life-forms different
from your own. Who can say
we're so much more superior? I've
never seen them being idle. I
wish I could say the same thing about you.

The Art of Marriage

There's an art to living together,
Father said, and since your mother
is the creative one I let her
work on it. I stand on the side
and say, "Have you finished
perfecting our marriage yet?"
"I can only accomplish that,"
she says, "by getting a new husband."
That's how I know she still loves me.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be a joke.

The Hawk Who Became a Dove

Most people start off supporting
their country's war efforts,
Father said, but as soon as someone
close to them gets drafted,
they suddenly change their tune
& begin to question the government.
Your friend's father was a hawk.
When his son received a draft notice
he became a dove. Instead of swooping down
on anyone opposed to the war, he
started to do lots of cooing. He's
easier to listen to now, because he
isn't always ruffling someone's feathers.
It's a shame that he needed the possibility
of his son's death to improve his personality.

The last section of the book features poems about the elder Sirowitz's losing battle with prostate cancer. Things get a bit more philosophical, but the humor shines through.

Saving a Spot for Me in Heaven

When I go to Heaven I'll be curious
to see who else I'll meet there, Father said,
besides your mother. She's the only one
I'm sure of meeting, since just before
she died she told me she would be saving
me a spot. I wonder how she'll handle
the fact that while she was gone I found
another girlfriend. It didn't mean anything
but convincing her of that is going
to be very difficult, almost impossible.
I hope she already knows about it
& was able to make the proper adjustments,
or I'll just have to get away from her
by going to that other place.

I must be getting old, because so much of what Father says just seems to make so much damned sense.

Daily Lotto

Life is this daily lottery
with death, Father said,
though if you win too soon
it's not as good a prize
as it is many years later.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though MOTHER SAID remains my favorite, I laughed through this poetry book, too.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these unusual short poems all framed as a father speaking to his son. They capture something true to life and are a fix of funny and more serious insights.

[Tomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sirowitz is New York poet and satirist with an ear for domestic comedy and sorrow, the latter on a scale manageable by a therapist. This volume is in the tradition of Mother Said and My Therapist Said, as well as his most recent, Before, During, and After, poems on love and sex. Father Said seems at times to either tread the water of understanding or to be simply satisfied being wry. Maybe it’s that the dialogue is too limited, between father and son, particularly given that each poem is really, as the books’ titles suggest, a recalled monologue. And it has since occurred to me that maybe the best way to read Sirowitz’s work is not in small doses, but, counter-intuitively, in one large chunk: mother, father, therapist, lovers, with selections from each of the collections interwoven and combining to make a great satiric verse novel. Still, there are laugh out loud moments, no small accomplishment in contemporary poetry and it does add to the ongoing dialogue between the poet and all the voices in his life. Next up, My Editor Said or My Landlord Said or perhaps My Rabbi Said.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another collection of simple, humorous, and wise (sometimes) poems by Sirowitz who used to be the poet laureate of Queens.