Provisional Conclusions: Poems About Adhd, Grief, and Some of Life’S Other Little Struggles

By Mike Fedel

A diagnosis of ADHD at age fifty-five can make you stop and think. So can losing your daughter to a drunk driver two days after her eighth birthdayor looking up at the majesty of the Big Buddha in Phuket after getting lost in the mountains on the way there.
Spanning a period from high school in the seventies until a few hours before it went to the editor, the poems in Provisional Conclusions explore these topics and more: being a parent, being a man, living with ADHD, the legacy of Howard Thurman, the myth of objectivity, the delight and terror of raising a family, the dreams of Korczak Ziolkowski, and even a quick peek into hell. Poet Mike Fedel also considers race, sex, love lost and found, philosophy, consciousness, and Godwhat is she like, anyway? Sections include Thinking Out Loud, The ADHD Chapter, Loss, and Love and Nervous Energy.
Offering accessible observations on a wide range of topics, the verses in this collection consider the raw emotions associated with love, grief, and ADHD.
...powerful and poignant poems which capture a fathers experience of losing his 8 year-old daughter...
Irving Leon, Ph.D.
...the poetry of a brilliant, often misunderstood ADHD mind, trapped in a linear world...
Suzanne Ostrowski-Dansel, M.Ed., ACC
...fresh, moving poems by Mike Fedel, an important new voice in music and now in poetry...
Anna Boothe, Author of I Already Love You, Beyond Words, and Buddha.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491779934

Mike Fedel

Mike Fedel is a performer, musician, and educator who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His ADHD-fueled curiosity has led him into software development, seed-bead art, master’s degrees in theology and performance, jazz and folk music, and teaching improvisation. With his wife, Jean, he is raising their daughter, Lisa.

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Copyright © 2016 Mike Fedel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-7994-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7993-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918478

iUniverse rev. date:  02/12/2016

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Part I

Thinking Out Loud

Maybe That Was Richard Brautigan

Proud Dad

Love Letters

Tourist Or A Reflection 50 Years After Exiting The Birth Canal

Sketched In Profile: The Third Division Of Plato’s Line

Early Gender Consciousness

Dreams

Late One Night In Cleveland

Scientific Proof Of E-Minor

The Men In My Family Aren’t Talkers

The Missing Fish

During A Friendly Game Of Cards

In A Large Stack Of Papers Typed On An Old Royal Quiet Deluxe Which Is Still In My Basement – Somewhere

On A Dirt Road In The Orient A Very Long Time Ago

Oakland, 1993

La Petite Mort

On Duty

Tune Up

In The Rain

Korczak’s Rock

Unraveling

Prometheus And Atlas At The Typewriter

Howard (Washington) Thurman

Why A Garden?

Hell

Part II

The Adhd Chapter

Watching For Cracks

Tomatoes

I’m Sorry I Broke Your Life

A Sinner Visits Paradise

A Small Glass Ball

Truing Up The Corners Of A Life That Is Moving Very Quickly But Along The Wrong Track

Fragile

Part III

Loss

Archaeology: Visiting Our Home Six Weeks After Amy’s Funeral

Portrait Of A Ghost

Eberwhite Playground, September 15, 1998 – 1:18 A.m.

2 Weeks Or 30 Years Later: Grief Group

Pain And Memories

All Men Are Created Equal

Amy And Her Dad Do The Laundry

A Sister Sunset

My Uncle Mike

Part IV

Love And Nervous Energy

Why We Do This

Happy Birthday To Lisa

Bedtime

It’s A Bear, Papa

Dirty Dishes

Bridgeport

On Campbell Street In Dearborn Heights, Mi A Long Time Ago When The World Was Still Full Of Possibilities

A Poetry Seminar In Michigan In 1974

One Late Afternoon In A Coffee Shop

My Bruce Cockburn Floor Plan

On Going Back

Happiness

About The Author

Provisional Conclusions

These are fresh, moving poems by Mike Fedel, an important new voice in music and now in poetry.

Anna Boothe

author, I Already Love You, Beyond Words, and Buddha

"I was most powerfully moved by ‘Back to the House’, ‘No More’, ‘Amy and Her Dad Do the Laundry’, and the October 8th poem that starts with ‘Lisa asked me what was wrong…’ I was either very moved or devastated by them. ADD’ers just seem younger than their age. When you get to be our age, it’s generally a good thing. We’re not stuffy old men. Lots of men, in our culture at least, seem to get very rigid as they grow older, both