Painstaker: Poems

By Jeffrey Galbraith

In Painstaker, Galbraith takes stock of life, building an inventory of faith, regret, travel, parenthood, and hardship both physical and mental. These poems live in cities but remember the farm, with subjects ranging from fatherhood and machinery accidents to the uncertainties of faith. Galbraith calls on a number of absentees who are deceased, divine, distant, or too intimately known, including loved ones, lost friends, and a lobster soon to be dinner. As the title suggests, Painstaker understands that the act of paying attention to the details is no easy task, and yet therein lies the reward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781498243582

Jeffrey Galbraith

Jeffrey Galbraith is Assistant Professor of English at Wheaton College, Illinois. He earned his doctorate in English Literature from Indiana University, and his MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. His poetry has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Florida Review, RHINO, Yemassee, and the Cresset.

Book preview

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Painstaker

Poems

Jeffrey Galbraith

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Painstaker

Poems

Copyright © 2017 Jeffrey Galbraith. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1821-5

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4359-9

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4358-2

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

I.

God the Gorilla or Wolf

The Garbage Fires

Bloodlines

Fields a Green Wave

Who Do You Say I Am

Record of Persons Whose Names Have Changed

With My Father, Cutting Pigs

When Matt’s Dad Lost His Hand

Menagerie Wish List

Frankenthumb

Captain of the Wrestling Team and His Best Friend, During Practice

Our Last High School Summer

Metamorphosis

In the Kitchen

Come Spring

Cloud Sheep

II.

How We Got a Dog

Lobster through the Heavens

At the Pacific

Day of the Dead, Michoacán

First Date, Valentine’s Day

Letter from the Corner of Lemons and Main

Wish List in Middle Age

My Resurrected Body

Painstaker

Love Wins

Elegy for Deer-Man

Unbidden

Hope New Rising

re Controversy

Poem with Italicized Phrases from a Student’s Water-Stained Mythology Class Notes, Found Perched on a Vanishing Bank of Snow

III.

Sonnet

Isaiah in the Cancer Ward

Down in the Head

Isaiah in Chicagoland

Shop-soiled, adj.

The Poet Abuzz after Chemo on a Whammo Steroid

Early Christian Advice Column

New Life, Lake Scituate

Prayer

Elevation, St. Louis Arch

Elegy for a Poet Catching Stride

I Dream Your Face the Night You Move Away

Winter Monarchs, Michoacán

Killdeer

Self-Portrait as Motel Night Clerk

Two Decades Gone, Barra de Navidad

Isaiah on the Promise of International Space Projects

For Paula, love’s best tutor

Acknowledgements

Concerning International Space Projects and Phrases from a Student’s Water-Stained Index Card, published in Florida Review

Early Christian Advice Column, published in Windhover

Fields a Green Wave, published in RHINO

New Life, Lake Scituate and "Day of the Dead, Michoacan," published in Cresset

Prayer, published in Sensucht

Record of Persons Whose Names Have Changed, published in Southern