"Anyone's Son" poems by David Meischen
David Meischen | Texas/New Mexico
A featured poet at the Comfort Quarterly Poetry Event, Fall 2021
From the rural South Texas of the nineteen fifties to a desert mesa in New Mexico many years later, Anyone’s Son illuminates the moments of a life animated by the author’s yearning, at its root sexual, for the company of another man. In five sections, each one corresponding to a stage in the life delineated here, the author offers scenes from his childhood on a small farm, as well as moments of conflicted adolescence. He explores unmitigated sexual pleasure, sometimes fraught with anguish and shame. He remembers scenes from marriage and fatherhood, from the wreckage and rebuilding that came at midlife. And finally, glimpses from a second marriage, this time unconflicted, to a man, to the right man. At its heart, Anyone’s Son poses an implicit question: What is identity?
David Meischen is a Pushcart honoree, with a personal essay in Pushcart Prize XLII. His first collection of poems, Anyone’s Son, is winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL). A native of rural South Texas and a lifelong storyteller, David has twice received the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story from TIL, most recently for “Crossing at the Light,” lead story in The Distance Between Here and Elsewhere: Three Stories (Storylandia, Summer 2020). He and husband Scott Wiggerman are co-founders of Dos Gatos Press, publisher of the Texas Poetry Calendar for thirteen years. Residents of Austin, Texas for more than thirty years, David and Scott currently make their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Paperback: 121 pages
Publication Date: May 15, 2020
Product Dimensions: 10" H x 7.5" W