Daddy Poesy

While it is easy to make fun of sentimental nonsense, it is harder to do so when it involves the poetry efforts of a 10-year-old poeticizing in rhyme the loss of the father felled by a brain tumor seven years previously. Strikingly enough, Press Packer Edward is not the only poet working the dad vein.

In fact, if you're feeling all poemy (and are under 17) there is still time to enter the (NJ) Daily Journal's Father's Day poetry contest. If you've reached voting age by now, you can always hope to make the rounds of e-mail in-boxes like Tony Hoagland and his "The Story of the Father." Hoagland's TSotF is Papa-ic Ode to a man who publicly cremates his private grief at the loss of his son.

So, apparently, the run-up to Father's Day is a time for poetry (who knew?). Even a time for a son to make a Bollywood musical using his father's translation of the Sanskrit epic poem Bhagavat Gita ("Song of God") — envisioned as the ultimate poem from and for the
ultimate father.

** The most basic: He's my dad/I am glad. You will do better. **