Why read frank?

Book cover of frank: sonnets

Book description

A resplendent life in sonnets from the author of Four-Legged Girl, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

"The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do / without," Diane Seuss writes in this brilliant, candid work, her most personal collection to date. These poems tell the story of a…

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Poetry

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Why read it?

1 author picked frank as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dale M. Kushner

Author

Diane Seuss is a poet of indefatigable courage.

The sonnets to her deceased father, Frank, sing of grief, despair, illness, but also of the miraculous ordinary, those lightning strikes of sudden joy or hilarity that somehow redeem us from the abyss.

Breath-takingly, Seuss is not afraid to mention the unmentionable, piss and squalor, poverty, and needles. The speaker in her poems, like the princess who found her name in my fairy tale, refuses to be domesticated and bound by values alien to her being.

In an age of conformity, what stands out about Seuss’s poetry is her compassion for the…

From Dale's list on books that translate harsh realities into stories that speak truth about our inner lives.