“What is goodness?” David Banach asks in his compelling new collection. The poems of How to Be Good journey through the political, the historical, and the personal, examining the theatrical masculinity of the town dump, nicknaming the inflatable figure in front of car dealerships the “Sisyphus of advertising,” and blasting anger like a broken jar of salsa.
Banach recalls for us “all the difficulties of/loving in this wind-swept world where kindness/is lighter than air” through work that considers profanity and philosophy, theology and gender. How to Be Good rings with Whitman and Blake and declares empathy “an ache in places I never knew/I had places.” Banach is a rare poet of the pure heart, and his poems soothe like a balm for a contemporary age where heaven might require a two-factor authentication for entrance as a way of keeping out those who have ignored sunsets or kissed without passion. --Jennifer Militello, Poet Laureate of New Hampshire
About the author:
David Banach is a philosopher and a poet, though often not in that order. He has taught for many years at Saint Anselm College and lives in Goffstown, NH, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and watches for lessons in the sky. He has published over 70 poems in various journals, and is editor of Touchstone, the journal of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He is a Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Forward Prize nominee, and is a past president of the Northern New England Philosophical Association.
Join David at The Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, NH on Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 11 am where he will read from & discuss his newest book of poetry.
No comments:
Post a Comment