Father/Daughter Poems

The current theme of the Featured Poets Page at Adanna Journal is father/daughter poems, and there is a variety of experience represented there. I have two poems on this page, one about my own dad and his talk of philosophy at the breakfast table while I was growing up, and Donna Vorreyer has two wonderful "literary analysis" poems that explore fictional fathers.

Of course, Atticus Finch is one of my favorite fictional fathers.

I alerted my dad to this page, having been told by him that all great poets write a "father poem." And I realized in the context of his response that, while I have indeed contributed poems to literary journals devoted to women's experience and drawing mostly female contributors (which helps balance out an imbalance in the publishing world, I note re: VIDA statistics)*, none has actually excluded men as contributors!

Case in point, from Adanna's home page:

While this journal is dedicated to women, it is not exclusive, and it welcomes our counterparts and their thoughts about women today. Submissions to Adanna must reflect women’s issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion. 

*It's cool that Granta, a magazine my folks love and gave me a subscrip-tion to, represents men and women writers pretty equally, this year swinging toward the women!