Nick Flynn chronicles the surreal experience of being on set during the making of the film Being Flynn, from his best-selling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and watching the central events of his life reenacted: his father's long run of homelessness and his mother's suicide.
A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.In 2007, during the months before Nick Flynn’s daughter’s birth, his growing outrage and obsession with torture, exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photographs, led him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in those photos. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with his unsteady father, and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, Flynn artfully interweaves in this memoir passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his growing obsession—a questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life. The time bomb of the title becomes an unlikely metaphor and vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father. Here is a memoir of profound self-discovery—of being lost and found, of painful family memories and losses, of the need to run from love, and of the ability to embrace it again.
Al centro di questa favola autobiografica, priva di sentimentalismi, c'è l'incontro casuale tra Nick e suo padre Jonathan. Nick lo incrocia per la prima volta a 27 anni, mentre lavora come volontario in una casa-rifugio per senzatetto di Boston. Per anni da ragazzo aveva ricevuto lettere da questo estraneo, sedicente poeta abituato a tirare avanti miseramente con mille piccole truffe e tra un periodo di carcere e l'altro. Anche Nick ha condotto una vita semiprecaria tra un peschereccio cadente e le rovine di un deposito trasformatosi in un fiorente centro per l'uso di crack, e adesso si è ridotto a lavorare in un rifugio per senzatetto. Qui un giorno compare, barbone in mezzo ai barboni, Jonathan che ha perso un lavoro dopo l'altro, è sprofondato nell'alcolismo e si trascina per Boston all'interno di un universo tutto suo fatto di miseria e illusioni (i suoi presunti rapporti con Vonnegut e con Patricia Hearst; il suo misterioso Grande Romanzo Americano da finire). Questo memoir racconta con una voce unica, ironica, ritmata, la storia di due vite e del destino che le ha portate a intrecciarsi in modo del tutto inatteso in un centro di accoglienza per gli emarginati di Boston. Una storia molto forte e struggente di due uomini alla deriva negli Usa di oggi, uomini che si cercano, si trovano, si perdono.
"WHATEVER SHIRLEY OR NICK TELL YOU-BELIEVE THEM." - Naomi Shihab Nye How do we read a poem? What can we teach from a poem we love? This book addresses these questions by inviting preservice and inservice teachers, staff developers, and anyone interested in integrating poetry into their lives and classrooms. It offers a close examination of poetry inquiries in primary through middle school settings. Each chapter features a mentor poem to spark discussion, accompanied by a narrative reflecting the authors' perspectives through a specific poetic lens. Readers are guided into a classroom writer's workshop, where vignettes, conversations, and mini-lessons explore key elements of poetic practice over time. Teachers will find valuable resources for designing and conducting inquiries around mentor poems, including mini-lessons that guide students from initial exploration to in-depth extensions, student writing samples showcasing various stages of development, and insights from beloved poets that inspire teaching. Appendixes provide additional resources such as book lists, charts, and conference transcripts. This book demonstrates how to help student writers draw inspiration from the poems they love, fostering a writing life that encourages them to find and craft their own voices.