Song of the Closing Doors: Poems (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780593321423)

From New York City subway encounters to memories of pickup basketball games on Fourth Street, a love letter to the past, and to all the relationships and memories our homeplaces hold, from the National Book Award finalist.

"I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of deceit . . . is honest and upright, steadfast and good"; even the busted buttons we press when waiting to cross the street make for elegy in a collection that brings us this poet at his burnished best.

Phillips finds his love of a complex, vibrant city extends to his dearest people--he writes for his friend Paul, dying of cancer; for his wife's stormy eyes when they fight; for the baby boy he once woke at night to feed and change. All these and more pass through Phillips's elegant yet colloquial lines, in a book that shines with love and honesty on every page. As he writes, "If you're reading this / we were once friends."


Author: Patrick Phillips
ISBN-10: 0593321421
ISBN-13: 9780593321423
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 08/23/2022
Pages: 72
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.49lbs
Size: 8.87h x 6.25w x 0.48d