Night Angler

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Excerpt from "Pillow Kombat with the Ultimate Sleep Fighter"

Like in a video game, size does nothing
to decide advantage:—my demure son
throws his demure weight around our family bed
with resolve, and so I revolve inside discomfort’s
orbit, the planet of my sleepiness demoted,
dwarfed—unstudied! Just as I reach my parental

threshold of self-denial, just as I go to reinstate
the matter of physics—energy and force—he executes
his special move: a combo of lovey words struck
half-consciously across the dark, launching me
into another vain-cycle search for deep space
shuteye. Then his favorite toy sheep tucked between

my folded arms (FINISH HIM!). Then the fresh delicacy
of his foot plopped upon my forehead (FATALITY).

Praise for Night Angler

“A strong second work after Revising the Storm that will resonate with any reader interested in the ties that lovingly bind.” —Library Journal

“From love letters and prayers surrounding youth, fatherhood, and family—to a river that holds the solace of fishing and life in the South—the book constantly evolves. Davis’s narrative poems comment on the mistreatment, the wonder, and the hope surrounding black lives, not only in the South, but in America as a whole.” —Arkansas International

“The poems in Geffrey Davis’s Night Angler sing in both ecstatic joy and tremendous lament. We partake in the rituals of fatherhood—both coming into and growing out of the spiritual bond. We witness the anguish of loss but also the possibilities of childhood. And in that threshold between life and death where all fathers and sons traverse, the brilliant harmonies of understanding arise in rainbowed arcs like epiphanic trout rising to kiss the sun. Poetry and prayer have never shared so close a breath.” —Oliver de la Paz

“In Geffrey Davis’s stunning collection Night Angler there is a grace fathered by risk, a wonder mothered by worry. These lines cast and cast through generations of fathers to find music and floods and hands that can deliver both tenderness and violence. This is the book I want to give to all the parents in my life so they can see their own struggles and songs and be reminded that the lessons we offer our children are often the ones we need most, that ‘there are those who touch a body and leave it graceful: be that kind of wonder.’” —Traci Brimhall, author of Saudade

”Geffrey Davis’s poems reveal the small slants of light, the unusual turns of fate, the near invisible machinations—of humans and nature—that ripple through everything with consequences, yet also always with a breathless and radiant redemption. Love, fatherhood, family, loss are all engaged with lyrically and with a deeply engaging and persuasive insight. Davis is a quietly brilliant poet.” —Chris Abani, author of Sanctificum

© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019