Crash Course

<p>Through lyric and narrative poems alike the speaker of the poems in <em>Crash Course</em> attempts to understand the manner in which cultural traditions and expectations shape their understanding of the world. Watching a father patch up a truck ponders the effect of language across generations. A simple knock on the door provides a meditation on the immigrant experience and the anxiety surrounding what it means to arrive with nothing in a different country. Other poems look at the complexity of familial relationships dissecting specific moments that although appear mundane on the surface (shopping for items to put on layaway barbecues watching a cousin feed his pet snake) are – once fleshed out on the page – profound episodes that enlighten a labyrinth of memories.</p>