Karen
I read this several months ago, just now getting around to writing a review. As someone who fell in love with the Twin Cities while visiting as a teenager and moved here permanently in 1998, it's fascinating to get glimpses inside the minds and lives of people who were born here and often live not far from the neighborhood where they grew up. Although I have been here almost 30 years, when I get that chance, I feel like an outsider newbie all over again.
I'd never heard of Mark Connor, a St. Paul Irish American poet who also writes about boxing, until I was given his book to read this spring. His voice in this book is conversational, like someone you'd run into at your neighborhood dive. His poems revolve around his concern for a woman he's having a kind of ambiguous relationship with, trying to honor his Catholic faith, and binding it all together, his Dad, who taught him the Catholicism he now loves. The poems are connected by a narrative that covers Irish Americans in St. Paul, growing up around his parents' friends, going off to work on an Alaskan fishing boat, returning to volunteer at a homeless shelter for Native youth, boxing, and what Catholicism means to him. If someone were to record this as an audio book, I could imagine Craig Finn of the Hold Steady narrating it.
Although this book was not really my cup of tea, I enjoyed the glimpses of my adopted hometown through a native born son's eyes. I appreciated the humor and philosophy woven through It's About Time (the title is a pun), and I will keep an eye out for Connor's name in future Twin Cities publications.
I read this several months ago, just now getting around to writing a review. As someone who fell in love with the Twin Cities while visiting as a teenager and moved here permanently in 1998, it's fascinating to get glimpses inside the minds and lives of people who were born here and often live not far from the neighborhood where they grew up. Although I have been here almost 30 years, when I get that chance, I feel like an outsider newbie all over again.
I'd never heard of Mark Connor, a St. Paul Irish American poet who also writes about boxing, until I was given his book to read this spring. His voice in this book is conversational, like someone you'd run into at your neighborhood dive. His poems revolve around his concern for a woman he's having a kind of ambiguous relationship with, trying to honor his Catholic faith, and binding it all together, his Dad, who taught him the Catholicism he now loves. The poems are connected by a narrative that covers Irish Americans in St. Paul, growing up around his parents' friends, going off to work on an Alaskan fishing boat, returning to volunteer at a homeless shelter for Native youth, boxing, and what Catholicism means to him. If someone were to record this as an audio book, I could imagine Craig Finn of the Hold Steady narrating it.
Although this book was not really my cup of tea, I enjoyed the glimpses of my adopted hometown through a native born son's eyes. I appreciated the humor and philosophy woven through It's About Time (the title is a pun), and I will keep an eye out for Connor's name in future Twin Cities publications.