12/21 David Allen Sullivan hosted by Bruce
David Allen Sullivan’s first book, Strong-Armed Angels, was published by Hummingbird Press, and three of its poems were read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a multi-voiced manuscript about the war in Iraq, was published by Tebot Bach. A book of translation from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet was published in 2013, and Black Ice, about his father’s dementia and death, was published by Turning Point Press. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students, and lives in Santa Cruz with his love, the historian Cherie Barkey, and their two children, Jules and Mina Barivan. He was awarded a Fulbright, and taught in China for one year (yesdasullivan.tumblr.com). His poems and books can be found at Welcome!
Status Update
My dead father friended me on Facebook
today. I recognized his grinning mug
since I’m the one who uploaded that look,
minus my mom. Algorithims trigger
such messages, I’m aware of that fact,
yet still I felt a little uptick in
my heart, a strange elation that he cracked
the code to invade my computer screen,
reaching out to me as he so seldom
did while with me. Spiritus sancti. Amen.
He teases me with that devilish grin,
is this another lesson in lessening?
I hit confirm. And send him a reply:
Are you freed from the living when you die?
