Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Seize
    Seize
    Seize
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    Seize

    By Brian Komei Dempster

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Seize, Brian Komei Dempster’s follow-up to Topaz, spares no one the highs and lows of fatherhood. The speaker struggles to care for his young and ailing child — a child whose many medical problems create an obstacle course of moral and emotional dilemmas. How does a father come to terms with the large and unknowable mysteries of a child who cannot communicate in a “normative” way? How does a parent — especially one who is dependent on language — guide a child without the use of speech? And how does one become the parent of another when their own uncertainties, their own wounds — intergenerationally from war, from strained race relations, from constantly being denied a place to belong — are still healing?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFour Way Books
    Release dateOct 22, 2020
    ISBN9781945588907
    Seize

    Related to Seize

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Ishion Hutchinson

      Jun 8, 2021

      Tremor in his hands. He turns obsoleteleaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.What he sees he reads under croton shade,out in the sun. Restless peninsula,dog-eared, melting off into the blue.The blue breaks white as hallucination,more hagga

      3 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Younger Than War

      Nov 9, 2023

      Younger Than War
      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      Harold Bloom, 1930–2019

      Oct 15, 2019

      Harold Bloom, 1930–2019
      1 min read

    • Article

      José Donoso Saw the Future of Latin American Literature

      Nov 21, 2023

      American readers have largely forgotten the single greatest writer to come from the Latin American Boom: Chilean novelist José Donoso. The post José Donoso Saw the Future of Latin American Literature appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      It is all, allover the earth, underearth, a graveyard: tree ferns, trees—roots,bark, seeds—ancientlife that emerged from the sea, forestsflooded to swamps& bogs, transformed to peat, transformedagain, sunk, coveredwith layers of earth with strangeamp

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      Sometimes I feel like I’m writing the scorefor a film that doesn’t yet exist, but everything that will happenin the film will happen to me. Is this what they call plot? This dailypicking up of the same things— glasses, coffee cup, pen, book, keys—and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      Resistance and Reclamation

      Oct 13, 2021

      IN LATE 2016, adoptee poet and Kundiman fellow Leah Silvieus initiated a research project about the ways in which emerging adoptee poets contend with identity, loss, culture, and family in their work. She sent a query through the Kundiman network, lo

      17 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      You don’t understand, he says, again,from the backseat of the car, my son, who only months ago, could not fallasleep before whispering, first, some secret in my ear. When I lookin the rearview, he turns toward peaks in the distance, and when I ask hi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Fifteen Poets on Revision

      Feb 27, 2018

      After 17 drafts over two weeks, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” was completed on November 4, 1975. The poem began as notes, and evolved into a villanelle. She changed the title. She deleted words. She reached for possible rhymes. Brett Candlish Mil

      4 min read

    • Article

      From Couplets

      Dec 7, 2022

      From Couplets
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Seize

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Seize - Brian Komei Dempster

      Seize

      Blue flame

                                    in the eye’s corner,

      stove on

                     high, we brace

                                    for his flint

                     and spark, our dark

      surprise, his smile

                                    jolts, head

                     unleashed, little body

                                                  arched, straining

                                    in the high

      chair, we stand

                                  to face

                     anything, she steadies

                                    his tray, eggs bubble

                     in the pot, I lunge

                                    for his spoon, his purple

      elephant, water boils

                                    over sides, we look

                     to each other, sense

      the sizzle, his bowl

                     clattering, a reverse

                                                  crater, we shake off

                                    faults, shells

                     crack, window

      shut, we smell

                                    the heat, hardened

                                                  yolks, his brain’s singed

                     gray, the scorched

      black dome,

                  we are all

                                 hollowed out.

      A Boy

      We knocked Jake Brown

      to the ground

      in eighth grade, kept him there

      with words, Get up, retard. A

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1