Newman finally convinces him to move into a nursing home, and writes: Her father remains able to do complex arithmetic in his head even as he starts to see visions of people from his earlier life and ones who have never existed. Newman understands that aging is not a simple or linear process. He then sits in the doctor’s office “to wait and wonder/when on earth he’ll be called,” and we understand that it is not just a medical appointment that he is wondering about. Another poem shows him reflecting that he and his wife had always planned that he would die first. It goes on to show how other parts of him, too, are slipping away, making the title/first line re-resonate. One poem, “My father is slipping,” begins: The particulars of their lives, however, also speak to the universals of change and loss and time, and everyday moments carry double meaning. Through vignettes and deft dialogue about supermarket trips, doctor’s appointments, looking through old photo albums, and more, she gives us an image of the man, stubborn and proud, as they navigate the last years of his life together. In its narrative poems, we see Newman’s own struggles as his caregiver, always loving but occasionally exasperated.

It ends with his own death from a stroke. (My review of the earlier volume is here.) I Wish My Father picks up after her mother’s death as Newman and her father face that loss as well as his own aging. I Wish My Father (Headmistress Press Amazon/ Bookshop) is a companion book to her 2015 I Carry My Mother ( Amazon/ Bookshop), about her mother’s battle with and death from cancer, though each can be read alone. She is also, however, an award-winning poet, and her latest volume of poetry for adults is a wise and loving look at her father in the last years of his life. Lesléa Newman may be best known to readers here as the author of Heather Has Two Mommies and other children’s books.

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