Season Tickets

Season Tickets is a collection of three prize-winning stories and twenty-six narrative poems arranged in three parts to tell the story of a life. "Okies" is the story of a boy's relationship with his illiterate father. In "The Student," a young man putting himself through college by working as a night minister in a wedding chapel reflects on his future when, in the middle of his ceremony, a bride he is attracted to has a seizure and the groom flees. "Seabreeze," set in a convalescent hospital, explores love and commitment when a man is challenged by stroke-induced darkness. Steve Kowit, author of In the Palm of Your Hand, describes the poems in this collection as "crisp, lucid & altogether believable--sometimes hilarious, sometimes chancy and transgressive, often deeply touching." Poems in the first section explore the lesson a boy learns in a group shower, the eroticism of a bowling ball, a mother's religious outrage when the father buys the family's first TV, and a boy's love for a third grade teacher. Poems in the middle section deal with the brittleness of relationships, ineptitude with finding new love, the philosophy of quitting, and fear of ex-wives. The final section celebrates the wisp of understanding that comes with age and praises reference librarians, sushi, a punch in the mouth, gravity, and Friends of the Library sales.