Still Living in Town

by Kevin Fitzpatrick

Still Living in Town is a collection of poems by Kevin Fitzpatrick. The poems are mainly rural in character, and revolve around a hobby farm run by Fitzpatrick's partner, the ever-industrious Tina. The poet himself, however, continues living in the city, and one section in the book is devoted to city life.

92 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still Living In Town
By Kevin FitzPatrick

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

A friend suggested I give this book of poems by a local author a read, and the first thing I wondered was, do I know this particular Tina? She’s a featured character throughout the collection and boy does that woman put in an incredible amount of work into, well, everything she does!
Author FitzPatrick makes no bones about his on-again, off-again love/hate of his weekend farm life with Tina. And I should mention, this is not (my definition) the normal type of rhyming, cleverly paced, poetry of yesteryear. This stuff is called free verse and in my opinion, is a type of flash-nonfiction. Tiny bites of story that may, or may not wrap up in the end.
Give this one a try:

“Five o’clock, Sunday morning,
Tina and I wake to rain and clatter outside.
Our dogs—a poodle, a rat terrier,
and a huge part-retriever mutt—tear out to a ladder
extending up the side of a full wagon of hay.
They leap up like ravenous sharks.
Whoever’s up there best not slip.

Enough. No barking. Down. It’s only Don.
It’s Don Roberts, seventy-eight years old with a bad knee.
who in the dim morning light and rain
appears to be fifty feet up as he crawls
and pulls a plastic tarp across the hay.
Katie! Betsy! Stella! Enough! You know Don.

He secures the tarp and climbs down,
telling us he drove over with a tarp and ladder
when he learned from Joni we ran out of time
to stack our last load of hay in the barn.

The dogs lick and nose Don’s hands. He comes in
for coffee, and then he’s off to deliver
vegetables in Minneapolis and then back
to the other side of Menomonie to see John the potter.

I reflect to Tina after he leaves,
I sure hope I’m that active and getting around
when I’m Don Roberts’ age.
I don’t know why you’re hoping that, Tina responds.
You’re not that way now.”

This reluctant weekend country boy makes it pretty darn clear he has a love/hate of farm life and sees it as being a smidgen less than a preferred way to idle away his time. Save for the fact that it does seem to orbit around the mysterious and obviously very industrious, Tina.
Though this is a writing form I have had little experience with, it’s attraction for artfully expressing a chunk of story in quick, concise snapshots is clear and interesting and very compelling. Even though there wasn’t a single poetic rhyme to be had, FitzPatrick did manage some smooth pentameters of alternating iambic as well as anapestic feet. Yes, I spoke with Mister Google and all things pentameter were explained.
I think this, perhaps, sums up the joy for our author as he leaves the farm and returns to living in town…
“She got up to the mailbox finally, turned her vehicle toward the highway and stars and disappeared.”
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[Walker James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this. It's local. It's rural poetry. I love the cover. But it's just way too literal. There are almost no metaphors happening in this book. There is so little sensory detail. Very basic creative writing standards are not adhered to (which could be interesting if done well). The core relationship was interesting when I thought it was a father-daughter thing (I must have missed something) until I realized it was a lover-lover thing. The dissonance of the speaker's urban life as contrasted with the rural life of Tina was interesting as a concept but not explored nearly enough. There were some good poems, though, pages I marked. I marked Memento as it has a strong beginning. I marked Farewell because I want to show it to my brother-in-law whose dog will soon perish. So, in that way, there is a success here. But it is just not enough to justify a full-length book.

[Joel Van Valin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the rural world evoked by the poems - a sort of updated North of Boston.

[Sara Beahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry. Minnesota rural life.