The Shoe Shine Parlor Poems Et Al: Second Edition

By W.R. Rodriguez

This is the first book of The Bronx Trilogy: three books of poetry about The Bronx and its environs. The Shoe Shine Parlor Poems Et Al: Second Edition features a preface written by the author and a bibliography. It is being released to complement the recent completion of the project, which includes: Concrete Pastures of the Beautiful Bronx and From the Banks of Brook Avenue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.R. Rodriguez
• Release date: Mar 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310697647

W.R. Rodriguez

W.R. Rodriguez grew up in the Bronx where he worked as a bootblack in the family shoe shine parlor. He moved to Madison where he earned an M.A. in English and taught high school for over thirty years. The urban environment has been a major source of his writing: “Although I left The Bronx decades ago, it has not left me. To give ironic tribute to the Romantics, I regard the streets and tenements as worthy subjects of art. I enjoy creating poetry from my memories of people, places, and events, as well as from research and imagination. Also, I want my poems to work on the page and to have a strong voice if read aloud.”His poetry has appeared in magazines such as Abraxas and Epoch, and in anthologies such as The Party Train, Welcome to Your Life, and Editor’s Choice III. Articles about his family’s experience in The Bronx were published in The Bronx County Historical Society Journal.W.R. Rodriguez is the author of several books of poetry. His latest, from the banks of brook avenue, is an evolution of the work he began in the shoe shine parlor poems et al and developed in concrete pastures of the beautiful bronx.

Book preview

the shoe shine parlor poems et al

second edition

w r rodriguez

Grateful appreciation to the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation

for supporting the completion of the original manuscript.

And thanks to Robert Stern for his friendship over the years.

The first print edition of the shoe shine parlor poems et al was published by Ghost Pony Press in 1984.

dedicated to my parents and to my wife

Acknowledgments:

Poems from this book appeared in the following magazines and anthologies:

Abraxas, Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Bronx; Collage of 9 & 1; The Croton Review; Editor’s Choice III: Fiction, Poetry & Art from the U.S. Small Press (1984-1990); Epoch; Fistflowers: Poems of Struggle and Revolution; I didn’t know there were Latinos in Wisconsin I; I didn’t know there were Latinos in Wisconsin II; and The U.S. Latino Review.

© 1984, 2016 w r rodriguez

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Preface to the Second Edition of the shoe shine parlor poems et al

I: the shoe shine parlor poems

making it

the cop

the shoe shine poem

al’s pictures of old times

grandfather

coffee

blinky

the banana man

little spic & big man

the bust

jim

the long walk to bed

private rivers

II: et al

the moon does not linger

Something Fishy

the miracle

the old woman

late one hot august

the day i threw thoreau off the roof

they disappear

of bootblacks

what i remember most about hughes avenue

the accordion player

butch

weeds

the bronx at the end of the mind

Bibliography: Previous Publications

The Bronx Trilogy

Preface to the Second Edition of the shoe shine parlor poems et al

This book is dedicated to my parents and to my wife, and rightly so. My mother liked to talk, and passed on family stories, in elaborate detail, to me and to a variety of cousins. My father, whose family suffered through the Great Depression, and who worked his way up from office clerk to office manager, did nothing to stop me from avoiding a career in banking, or from foregoing engineering and declaring myself an English major. My wife does not define happiness and fulfillment