I Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand by David Giver
Author bio:
David Giver is the author of A Slow Education (Shabda Press, 2013) and How to Commit Suicide (Unthinkable Creatures, 2013). He is on the staff of the Southern Poetry Review, and he teaches at Armstrong State University.
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What happens when a man/father/husband flails between denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, but never reaches acceptance? What happens when a grief is too great? David Giver’s, I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand explores the unknowable grief that comes with the death of a child. The form of the book--its enjambment, flashback, and realism—mirrors the experience of anguish itself. Giver guides us through this foggy grief with his brave, honest words and difficult truths. ~Kristen Nelson, author of Write, Dad
"A dark, hypnotic meditation on a young man's grief and alienation following a child's death, I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand is truly mesmerizing. Each line in this sustained lyric poem beats like blood through a broken heart." ~ Maggie Cleveland, author of Atom Fish
David Giver's wry take on modern family life, lovelessness, and untimely death is understated, by turns ironic and funny, but ultimately devastating. The father is an anti-hero like Willy Loman or Kevin Spacey's Lester Bernham in American Beauty: cynical and detached from his middle class American life. The strength of Giver's writing lies in his deft movements between sentimentality, deadpan humor, and horror. I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand is a strange and evocative little book. ~ Kristen Stone, author of Domestication Handbook
David Giver is the author of A Slow Education (Shabda Press, 2013) and How to Commit Suicide (Unthinkable Creatures, 2013). He is on the staff of the Southern Poetry Review, and he teaches at Armstrong State University.
Please click here to purchase the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble
What happens when a man/father/husband flails between denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, but never reaches acceptance? What happens when a grief is too great? David Giver’s, I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand explores the unknowable grief that comes with the death of a child. The form of the book--its enjambment, flashback, and realism—mirrors the experience of anguish itself. Giver guides us through this foggy grief with his brave, honest words and difficult truths. ~Kristen Nelson, author of Write, Dad
"A dark, hypnotic meditation on a young man's grief and alienation following a child's death, I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand is truly mesmerizing. Each line in this sustained lyric poem beats like blood through a broken heart." ~ Maggie Cleveland, author of Atom Fish
David Giver's wry take on modern family life, lovelessness, and untimely death is understated, by turns ironic and funny, but ultimately devastating. The father is an anti-hero like Willy Loman or Kevin Spacey's Lester Bernham in American Beauty: cynical and detached from his middle class American life. The strength of Giver's writing lies in his deft movements between sentimentality, deadpan humor, and horror. I Can Still Remember the Last Time You Held My Hand is a strange and evocative little book. ~ Kristen Stone, author of Domestication Handbook
A Slow Education by David Giver
Author bio:
David Giver is the author of A Slow Education (Shabda Press, 2013) and How to Commit Suicide (Unthinkable Creatures, 2013). He is on the staff of the Southern Poetry Review, and he teaches at Armstrong State University.
Order A Slow Education by David Giver on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
"What makes us men and fathers? What made our fathers men? How does experience push our life path without us knowing and what does it mean when we figure it out years later? David Giver's A Slow Education defines identity through review and training. It's an exploration of understanding that calls us back to our own importance and interpretation of our lives in the most significant ways. It reminds us that what it takes to BE is what being is - and being saved travels by us on endless tracks that we need to jump on. The trauma of life laid out in words bare on paper in remembrance of how we are taken and given life at the exact same time - a wash so hard to bare and a merciless love that is defining in its depth. Complete. Important. These words in their honest simplicity become poignant to the rise up and move forward way... you can't help but know even if everything hurts. Everything helps." - Steven Hazen Williams, Fight for your Frequency
David Giver is the author of A Slow Education (Shabda Press, 2013) and How to Commit Suicide (Unthinkable Creatures, 2013). He is on the staff of the Southern Poetry Review, and he teaches at Armstrong State University.
Order A Slow Education by David Giver on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
"What makes us men and fathers? What made our fathers men? How does experience push our life path without us knowing and what does it mean when we figure it out years later? David Giver's A Slow Education defines identity through review and training. It's an exploration of understanding that calls us back to our own importance and interpretation of our lives in the most significant ways. It reminds us that what it takes to BE is what being is - and being saved travels by us on endless tracks that we need to jump on. The trauma of life laid out in words bare on paper in remembrance of how we are taken and given life at the exact same time - a wash so hard to bare and a merciless love that is defining in its depth. Complete. Important. These words in their honest simplicity become poignant to the rise up and move forward way... you can't help but know even if everything hurts. Everything helps." - Steven Hazen Williams, Fight for your Frequency