AN AFTERNOON IN WATERLOO PARK: A Narrative Poem

by Gerald Dumas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 1971

A rather sickening long narrative written by a son who goes back to his mother's house (and his childhood) after her death, as the author tries to reconstruct the life of a person whom after all he did not know that well. The self-indulgent meanderings of a boy who could remember the name of every person in his first grade class may appeal to those with nostalgia for that much writtenabout America of the past, in this case Detroit and the little Canadian town where they visited the inevitable grandparents each summer. But the reader will have to bring his own sugar-coated imagination to what is not so much an evocation as a recall. Only the breaks between the long, absolutely prosaic lines suggest why the publisher calls this a poem, as it has none of the imagery, ambiguity, or condensation by which we usually recognize the genre.

Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION