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New Poets of America
Revising the Storm
This debut collection by Cave Canem fellow Geffrey Davis burrows under the surface of gender, addiction, recovery, clumsy love, bitterness, and faith. The tones explored—tender, comic, wry, tragic—interrogate male subjectivity and privilege, as they examine their "embarrassed desires" for familial connection, sexual love, compassion, and repair. Revising the Storm also speaks to the sons and daughters affected by the drug/crack epidemic of the '80s and addresses issues of masculinity and its importance in family.
Some nights I hear my father's long romance
with drugs echoed in the skeletal choir
of crickets.
Geffrey Davis holds an MFA and a PhD from Penn State University. A Cave Canem fellow, Davis is the recipient of the 2013 Dogwood First Prize in Poetry, the 2012 Wabash Prize for Poetry, the 2012 Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize, and the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He currently teaches at the University of Arkansas.
Some nights I hear my father's long romance
with drugs echoed in the skeletal choir
of crickets.
Geffrey Davis holds an MFA and a PhD from Penn State University. A Cave Canem fellow, Davis is the recipient of the 2013 Dogwood First Prize in Poetry, the 2012 Wabash Prize for Poetry, the 2012 Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize, and the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He currently teaches at the University of Arkansas.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2014
5 people are currently reading
297 people want to read
About the author
Geffrey Davis
9 books27 followersGeffrey Davis is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions), winner of the 2018 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Revising the Storm (BOA Editions), winner of the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He also coauthored the chapbook Begotten (URB Books, 2016) with LA-based poet F. Douglas Brown. His words have appeared in Crazyhorse, Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, New England Review, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.
Named a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Davis has received the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, and the Wabash Prize for Poetry, as well as fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. He was also awarded a Public Engagement Fellowship from the Whiting Foundation for his work with The Prison Story Project.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Davis lives with his family in Fayetteville, AR. He teaches at the University of Arkansas and with The Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran's low-residency MFA program. Davis also serves as poetry editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.
Named a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Davis has received the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, and the Wabash Prize for Poetry, as well as fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. He was also awarded a Public Engagement Fellowship from the Whiting Foundation for his work with The Prison Story Project.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Davis lives with his family in Fayetteville, AR. He teaches at the University of Arkansas and with The Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran's low-residency MFA program. Davis also serves as poetry editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 11, 2017
Incredibly beautiful poems about boyhood, coming to terms with his father and the penchant he had of leaving for months on end, navigating through life, and then finishing with the birth of his own son. Cyclical and breath taking.
January 18, 2018
Speechless. New. Favorite. Poet.
Wow. btw, Kids, I bought 2 copies of this one to pass around . . . borrow one if you like, or buy your own copy for Dr. Davis to sign when he comes to Osage for a poetry reading/workshop. (Yes, this is my current vision -- I will make it happen!!!) :)
Wow. btw, Kids, I bought 2 copies of this one to pass around . . . borrow one if you like, or buy your own copy for Dr. Davis to sign when he comes to Osage for a poetry reading/workshop. (Yes, this is my current vision -- I will make it happen!!!) :)
November 20, 2018
Wow. I never would've picked up a book of poetry if it weren't for Brian. I savored this book - it is so beautiful. It is a heartbreaking, hopeful story in verse. I'm so impressed.
September 7, 2015
Makes sorrow and loss palatable, at least in the text. Uses language to change the past without changing the facts. Shows the fault in misremembering and the power in redefining that memory. Enjoyable.
October 10, 2018
This was the first book of poetry I ever bought. I heard Davis read at a conference this summer, and I was so blown away, I had to get it. There is so much to love here, but I especially liked the generous lens he takes toward the father character (which, as a prose writer, I can only think of people as characters). And the poem about his son being born broke me!
February 6, 2020
This is the first book of poetry that I read cover to cover and wow. I will absolutely be reading more. I loved the complexity and layers of meaning and interpretation that flowed through this book, causing me to flip back and reread earlier sections and rereading some poems over and over again.
September 23, 2017
Used this book with my students this year. They responded really well to this work.
September 3, 2021
A book of raw, honest, and beautiful poetry!
August 10, 2020
King County Metro
In Seattle, in 1982, my mother beholds this man
boarding the bus, the one she's already
turning into my father. His style (if you can
call it that): disarming disregard—a loud
Hawaiian-print shirt and knee-high tube socks
that reach up the deep tone of his legs,
toward the dizzying orange of running shorts.
Outside, the gray city blocks lurch
past wet windows, as he starts his shy sway
down the aisle. Months will pass
before he shatters his ankle during a Navy drill,
the service discharging him back into the everyday
teeth of the world. Two of four kids will arrive
before he meets the friend who teaches him
the art of roofing and, soon after, the crack pipe—
the attention it takes to manage either
without destroying the hands. The air brakes gasp
as he approaches my mother's row,
each failed rehab and jail sentence still
decades off in the distance. So much waits
in the fabulous folds of tomorrow.
And my mother, who will take twenty years
to burn out her love for him, hesitates a moment
before making room beside her—the striking
brown face, poised above her head, smiling.
My mother will blame all that happens,
both good and bad, on this smile, which glows now,
ready to consume half of everything it gives.
In Seattle, in 1982, my mother beholds this man
boarding the bus, the one she's already
turning into my father. His style (if you can
call it that): disarming disregard—a loud
Hawaiian-print shirt and knee-high tube socks
that reach up the deep tone of his legs,
toward the dizzying orange of running shorts.
Outside, the gray city blocks lurch
past wet windows, as he starts his shy sway
down the aisle. Months will pass
before he shatters his ankle during a Navy drill,
the service discharging him back into the everyday
teeth of the world. Two of four kids will arrive
before he meets the friend who teaches him
the art of roofing and, soon after, the crack pipe—
the attention it takes to manage either
without destroying the hands. The air brakes gasp
as he approaches my mother's row,
each failed rehab and jail sentence still
decades off in the distance. So much waits
in the fabulous folds of tomorrow.
And my mother, who will take twenty years
to burn out her love for him, hesitates a moment
before making room beside her—the striking
brown face, poised above her head, smiling.
My mother will blame all that happens,
both good and bad, on this smile, which glows now,
ready to consume half of everything it gives.
August 13, 2014
I really appreciate the narrative that spans this collection that goes from a son's imperfect relationship with his father to the birth of that son's own son. The poems are comprehensible without being base and are full of complex imagery.
May 11, 2014
Holy crap this man is good at words.
October 20, 2016
I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and have been slowly savoring the collection one piece at a time. Lyrical, resonant, brilliant. Emotionally hard-hitting at times, and full of great imagery.
August 29, 2015
This is one of the most beautiful books of poetry I have read in a long time. Along with it's beauty there is an incredible depth and intelligence. If you have the chance, read this!
October 22, 2018
Phenomenal!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews