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Fly Fishing in Times Square
Poetry. "Memory, nostalgia, a changing America. The magic of the animal world and the fragility of all creatures. An eschewing of what is manmade and crowded and impersonal. Comradeship, sports, and competition. Beautiful unfulfilled mothers, the difficult communication of fathers and sons. William Walsh's FLY FISHING IN TIMES SQUARE is a love letter to Americana, a love letter to America. Each of these exacting, spectacular poems come around the corner like long lost friends to kiss each reader on the cheek."--Denise Duhamel
"William Walsh's new poems prove, once again, that 'there's no controlling the world's divine mysteries. With amazing vision and linguistic skill Walsh explores the desires and realities of domestic life in America. Reading these fine poems we are drawn into a complex world of family where separation is natural and memory provides the only means of holding on. These powerful poems never fail to lead us to ask the right questions about family and the wilderness, the world and our place in it."--David Bottoms
"With a keen and painterly eye, Bill Walsh masterfully renders the poetic, mysterious landscapes of memory and place, capturing his spiritual and physical self amid his intangible and tangible worlds that embrace us and become ours. I feel completely at home in these poems that question the very idea of home through imagery and language that is wise with longing, powerfully tender, and passionately at peace."--Richard Blanco
"William Walsh's new poems prove, once again, that 'there's no controlling the world's divine mysteries. With amazing vision and linguistic skill Walsh explores the desires and realities of domestic life in America. Reading these fine poems we are drawn into a complex world of family where separation is natural and memory provides the only means of holding on. These powerful poems never fail to lead us to ask the right questions about family and the wilderness, the world and our place in it."--David Bottoms
"With a keen and painterly eye, Bill Walsh masterfully renders the poetic, mysterious landscapes of memory and place, capturing his spiritual and physical self amid his intangible and tangible worlds that embrace us and become ours. I feel completely at home in these poems that question the very idea of home through imagery and language that is wise with longing, powerfully tender, and passionately at peace."--Richard Blanco
63 pages, Paperback
Published January 2, 2020
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December 23, 2019
It’s not often I pick up a book of poetry and read it straight through. Normally, I skip around, choosing poems by title or whim, but William Walsh’s newest collection, Fly Fishing in Times Square, demanded to be approached differently. The moment I finished reading the first poem, “Uncle Harvey’s Airships,”(a deceptive little number whose final, well-earned line is both sage and predictive of the collection’s bent) I felt compelled to move directly to the next title…and so it went…an almost mystical experience that suspended all sense of time as I moved from poem to poem.
Though many of the pieces in this book are set against a backdrop of traditionally-masculine pursuits like hunting, fishing, baseball, and the sometimes-funny-sometimes-cruel pranks played by boys, these are anything but poems of male bravado. Instead, they are quiet reflections on the myriad ways life can both break and heal us.
Whether dealing with the complex relationships between fathers and sons, mourning choices a mother made in youth, or juxtaposing the calm of fly fishing on a quiet stream with the fevered streets of New York City, Walsh is a poet who is unafraid of turning away from the truth. He pays attention to detail and clearly relishes telling readers stories. These are narrative poems at their best. Indeed, in a very real sense, having finished this book, I felt I’d been sitting by a campfire listening to an old friend recount stories from his many-faceted, always-engaging, life.
In one of my favorite poems, the quirky, “Digging Up the Past,” Walsh writes, “Memory is my homeland,” and, truly, that simple, elegant, line sums up this well-crafted collection where memory is the springboard not only to the past, but to the imagined future.
Despite some of the sadder notes sung in these pages, one comes away feeling more soothed than troubled. Walsh is a poet in whose skilled hands language itself becomes a balm. In “Lydia, My Waitress, Serves Me Coffee,” the speaker says, “I want to tell her/ it’s okay to be happy, but that seems weird.” Honestly, the only thing that’s weird about this book is its ability to take hold and not let go until you’ve turned each page…in order… and the way it makes you want to circle right back around and start in again!
Though many of the pieces in this book are set against a backdrop of traditionally-masculine pursuits like hunting, fishing, baseball, and the sometimes-funny-sometimes-cruel pranks played by boys, these are anything but poems of male bravado. Instead, they are quiet reflections on the myriad ways life can both break and heal us.
Whether dealing with the complex relationships between fathers and sons, mourning choices a mother made in youth, or juxtaposing the calm of fly fishing on a quiet stream with the fevered streets of New York City, Walsh is a poet who is unafraid of turning away from the truth. He pays attention to detail and clearly relishes telling readers stories. These are narrative poems at their best. Indeed, in a very real sense, having finished this book, I felt I’d been sitting by a campfire listening to an old friend recount stories from his many-faceted, always-engaging, life.
In one of my favorite poems, the quirky, “Digging Up the Past,” Walsh writes, “Memory is my homeland,” and, truly, that simple, elegant, line sums up this well-crafted collection where memory is the springboard not only to the past, but to the imagined future.
Despite some of the sadder notes sung in these pages, one comes away feeling more soothed than troubled. Walsh is a poet in whose skilled hands language itself becomes a balm. In “Lydia, My Waitress, Serves Me Coffee,” the speaker says, “I want to tell her/ it’s okay to be happy, but that seems weird.” Honestly, the only thing that’s weird about this book is its ability to take hold and not let go until you’ve turned each page…in order… and the way it makes you want to circle right back around and start in again!
Displaying 1 of 1 review