The twelfth volume of poems in the Walt McDonald First-Book Series, Gregory Fraser's Strange Piet??? is a compelling exploration of illness and family life, memory and desire, friendship and loss. A major focus of the collection is the poet's relationship to his brother Jonathan, who was born with spina bifida, a disease that rendered him both physically and mentally disabled. In rich and often wrenching detail, Fraser describes the emotional turmoil, familial dysfunction, and complex social responses arising from the birth ...
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The twelfth volume of poems in the Walt McDonald First-Book Series, Gregory Fraser's Strange Piet??? is a compelling exploration of illness and family life, memory and desire, friendship and loss. A major focus of the collection is the poet's relationship to his brother Jonathan, who was born with spina bifida, a disease that rendered him both physically and mentally disabled. In rich and often wrenching detail, Fraser describes the emotional turmoil, familial dysfunction, and complex social responses arising from the birth and ongoing care of a child with disabilities. The book examines cultural standards of normalcy and uncovers those aspects of the self that are often considered freakish, unnatural, or monstrous. What emerges is a poetry of poignancy and intellectual rigor, of private discoveries and larger philosophical questions about faith, beauty, and the redemptive power of art.A two-time finalist for the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, Strange Piet??? is, according to Robert Phillips, "an important debut." James Olney of The Southern Review describes Strange Piet??? as "a resounding triumph of strictly ordered emotion."
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