Nick Flynn chronicles the surreal experience of being on set during the making of the film Being Flynn, from his best-selling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and watching the central events of his life reenacted: his father's long run of homelessness and his mother's suicide.
Nick Flynn met his father when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this mystery father - self-proclaimed poet (and greatest American novelist since Mark Twain), descendant of the Romanov dynasty, alcoholic, and con-man doing time for bank robbery - but there had been no contact. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of the eerie trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other. With a raw authenticity, telling honesty and a dark but necessary humour, Nick Flynn's memoir breathes new life and vigour into the form. In passionate and playful prose Another Bullshit Night in Suck City illuminates the emotional and physical consequences of a relationship between father and son that exists, if at all, in a void.
"WHATEVER SHIRLEY OR NICK TELL YOU-BELIEVE THEM." - Naomi Shihab Nye How do we read a poem? What can we teach from a poem we love? This book addresses these questions by inviting preservice and inservice teachers, staff developers, and anyone interested in integrating poetry into their lives and classrooms. It offers a close examination of poetry inquiries in primary through middle school settings. Each chapter features a mentor poem to spark discussion, accompanied by a narrative reflecting the authors' perspectives through a specific poetic lens. Readers are guided into a classroom writer's workshop, where vignettes, conversations, and mini-lessons explore key elements of poetic practice over time. Teachers will find valuable resources for designing and conducting inquiries around mentor poems, including mini-lessons that guide students from initial exploration to in-depth extensions, student writing samples showcasing various stages of development, and insights from beloved poets that inspire teaching. Appendixes provide additional resources such as book lists, charts, and conference transcripts. This book demonstrates how to help student writers draw inspiration from the poems they love, fostering a writing life that encourages them to find and craft their own voices.