Ark

by Ed Madden

In a spring of floods, a son returns to rural Arkansas to help care for his dying father. A difficult and beautiful book about a father's death from cancer, Ark is also a book about family, about old wounds and new rituals, about the extraordinary importance of ordinary things at the end of life, about the gifts of healing to be found in the care of the dying. At once a memoir in verse about hospice care and a son's book-length lament for his father, Ark is a book about the things that can be fixed, and those that can't. Ed Madden is the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina. This book features cover art from Arkansas-born artist Carroll Cloar.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2016

About the author

An associate professor of English at USC, Ed Madden is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Nest (Salmon 2014). His work also appears in Best New Poets 2007 and elsewhere. He is also the editor of Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. In January 2015, he was named the Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia, South Carolina.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

ETA: I think about this collection all the time and can't believe I haven't come back to express how much it meant to me in a time of my own loss. My father had been diagnosed with cancer that would always be terminal, and when I got this collection signed, I knew that, kind of, but was trying to figure out where I fit and what to do. When it came time for my father to enter hospice in the summer of 2017, everything happened fast and somehow my family had not really come to terms with the terminal part of the diagnosis or what hospice meant. I brought this with me and found myself reading it for comfort. A few of the poems, I read to my mom and sisters even if they aren't usually poetry people. One described the process of dying in hospice so perfectly, and our feelings so perfectly, it was really a balm. I hope he sees this someday and understands the reaches of his work. 6/10/19

While it seems there is a theme to my reading recently, I did not select this because it deals with illness and difficult parental relationships, but rather because I just brought it home signed. Ed Madden is a poet who I have met in person on multiple occasions, most recently a gathering of South Carolina Poets Laureate at the university where I work. He is the Poet Laureate for the city of Columbia, the state capital. I also brought him in last May to do a talk for our Cultural Life Program on "Whose Stories Matter," related to the censoring of Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. On that occasion, he mentioned his TED Talk that includes some of the poems that end up in this collection, so I will link to it here: How to Lift Him. Very moving, addressing the pain of parents who dismiss or banish children for choices they don't agree with, and what matters in the end. At least, for Ed and his father. They are also the poems of a man returning home to rural Arkansas during a strange season of flood, with an echo of the displacement he is feeling also found in the landscape around him.

I had read some of these poems before, because at my institution we house the SC Poetry Archives. He is one of the poets who sends us everything, including chapbooks with limited runs - and some of these poems were originally included in the chapbook "My Father's House."

Some favorites this time around:

-Resemblances
I. Going through photos with my Mom
"We open the albums: I try
to pick the moment
I'm gone for good..."

-When My Father Woke
"...we hovered near his bed
in our small orbits, our small
impermanent orbits."

-The Language of Flannelgraph (this is probably something only children from fundamentalist sunday school will understand!)

-Thirst (included in the TED talk)

-When I Open My Mouth to Ask for Forgiveness

[Ron Mohring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of these poems appeared in *My Father's House*, a chapbook of Ed's I published in 2013, so it's obvious that I'd be moved by this collection. So many of the poems have a light, nuanced touch. It's so easy for this kind of collection to go wrong--too solipsistic, too dramatic--but *Ark* never slips into the overemotional. The next-to-last poem, "When I open my mouth to ask for forgiveness," just knocks the breath out of me.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intense, moving work on many levels, A son disconnected form his family returns home as his father nears death., The visit gives the son time to reflect on his Arkansas home, the relationship with his father and other family members, and grief. The result is a well-crafted, poignant and profound book of verse. Of the poems, the ones that resonanted with me were "Park', "worthy", and "Troubling the Water". There is a sadness here of course, but it is not morbid, and the poetry also captures the landscape very well.