Fathers, in Fragments: Poems on Men, Care, and Absence

Fatherhood is at once intimate and distant, embodied and symbolic, deeply personal and culturally overdetermined. For some, a father is a daily presence. A voice in the next room, a steady hand, a model of care. For others, he exists as absence, silence, or memory. Even when fathers are loving and attentive, they are rarely simple. Even when they are gone, they remain.

The poems in this collection approach fatherhood without sentimentality or judgment. They make room for fathers who stayed and fathers who left, for those who tried and those who could not, for men who offered a stable emotional ground and those who did not know how. They also acknowledge that fatherhood is not only about fathers themselves, but about the lives shaped in relation to them.

Cover art by Julie Christensen

Contributing writers: Lina Buividavičiūtė, Livia Mangialardi, Jane Saginaw, Louise Ells, Jenna Rindo, Lillie Morris, Sophie Richardson, Thomas Williams, Joanne Harris Allred, Jean Setrakian, Theta Pavis, Carol Schoder, Richard Stokes, Yiskah Rosenfeld, Nicola Geddes, Deborah R. Majors, Lee Erickson, Kaycee Painter, Samantha Russell, Jessalyn Maguire, W. Tracy Dillon, Kat Schmidt, Nicholas Selig, Lores Denison, Mingzi Yan, Valyntina Grenier, Julia Gordon-Bramer, Hetta Jones, Catherine Wald, Abigail Diaz, Brendan Straubel, Anastasia DiFonzo, Fran Abrams, Jean C. Howard, Patrick ten Brink, Gary Keenan, Nate Hirschtick, Paloma Pierce, Minghan Zou, Dick Altman, Christine Rikkers, Jeanne C Wilkinson, George Naranjo, Gloria Nixon-John, Tanya Moldovan, Elizabeth Walton, Kennedy Lorraine, Hayley Gronenthal, Spencer Davis, Marsha Howland, Julia Smuts Louw, Michael Brain, James Mulhern

Editorial Board: Kelly Sargent, K.D. Zwierz, Colby Flade, Noah Evan Wilson, Candi Martin, Brian "Brie" Sheridan, Roberta Laurie