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Today's poem is "'wait for Orion's sword to fall, to cut'"
from The Sum of Two Mothers

ELJ Publications

Dennis Etzel, Jr. lives with Carrie and the boys in Topeka, Kansas where he teaches English at Washburn University. He has an MFA from The University of Kansas, and an MA and Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Kansas State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, BlazeVOX, Fact-Simile, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, 3:AM, DIAGRAM, and others. He is Managing Editor of Woodley Press, volunteers at YWCA’s Center for Safety and Empowerment, and hosts the Top City Poetry Reading Series.

Books by Dennis Etzel, Jr.:

Other poems on the web by Dennis Etzel, Jr.:
Three poems
poems from My Secret Wars of 1984
poems from My Secret Wars of 1984

Dennis Etzel, Jr.'s Blog.

Dennis Etzel, Jr.'s Website.

About The Sum of Two Mothers:

"Sometimes the most complicated stories of our lives can be put into the shortest of forms. In this small book of poems Dennis Etzel Jr. recounts a fragmented chronology from his childhood to his fatherhood. Living their lives with love and integrity, Etzel’s two mothers raised him together despite the status quo resistance they daily faced in Topeka, KS. Now the father of sons, Etzel’s poems draw as much from his own memories as they do from the larger social context of marriage equality — and in bridging that gap between the personal and the political with lyrical grace and political conviction, Sum of Two Mothers is a riveting little book that is as much about growing up with two mothers, as it is about becoming a father who is raising his sons with a more inclusive — but equally protected — model of the world."
—Kristin Prevallet

"I love this book, and I wanted to say that first, 'in danger / of being / engendered'. These are the beautiful and percipient poems Minnie Bruce Pratt’s son could have written if the cops hadn’t ripped him from the arms of his two mothers. Crime Against Nature, meet The Sum of Two Mothers, it’s time we all meet up over here where Dennis Etzel Jr. is making the magic happen for us! You will hear in him with me the voice of a poet we have been waiting to hear, and glad we finally found him!"
—CA Conrad

"Rarely does a poem do as much in as few words as Dennis Etzel Jr.’s Sum of Two Mothers. It is a complete mini-autobiography in verse — but one that leaves ample room for the reader’s imagination. The poem’s supple, continuous syntax, plain-spoken musicality, architectural lines, and ample white space deftly convey both what is said and experienced, as well as what is not said or talked about. Reading Dennis Etzel, Jr.’s work is like reading William Carlos Williams, if Williams had had Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas as mothers."
—Joseph Harrington

"Dennis Etzel Jr’s The Sum of Two Mothers wades open-wounded into the unfriendly waters of a society bent on strangle-holding natural love and motherhood into pat definitions: “she was a mother before I thought of her / as my `other mother,’ // or `another mother’ because `mother’ / for me is hard to define.” In tones questioning, unsure, and ultimately defiant, these poems gather together in representation of the complexity of familial love. The Sum of Two Mothers is an imperative story, and one that is cast in lines intuitive, melodic, and resonant."
—Leah Sewell



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