New Book: Kind Surgery by Matt Dennison

Cover photograph by Juta Pryor

Urtica is proud to publish Matt Dennison's debut poetry collection. The father figure is central to this book and the voice takes you down memory lane, but not in a morose or weak tone. There are memories that, though painful and devastating, can later lead to the most beautiful moments.

After a rather extended and varied second childhood in New Orleans, Matt Dennison’s work has appeared in Rattle, Bayou Magazine, Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review, among others. He has also made short films with Michael Dickes, Swoon, Marie Craven and Jutta Pryor.

Many of these poems were published in small press magazines.

42 pages - $6 - ISBN: 9780244537012
Buy it here!

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Kind Surgery

Your father had an ear infection
so I lit a cigarette and blew
smoke into his ear and like a
damn fool started smoking
again and playing those
Hawaiian background
music records until
I got the scrof jaw
which you can see has
been removed through a
bit of kind surgery at the
Cook County Jail—
just the right side,
I believe. I touch
nothing when I touch it.
And yes there was my
side-family thought to be
hidden, but with your
grandmother fresh off the boat
from Sweden or somewhere
and dropping those babies,
‘twas tough being a cop and
a lumberyard cook—so consider
your father’s galvanic eye-squeaks
a rich source of magnets and
call it a day.