Tough Guys Don't Write Poems

"In these poems, Joe Benevento knows there is no escape from one's personal history, and no reason to escape. He celebrates family in all its facets and polarities, the fecundities and difficulties alike. With the plain-spoken ease and realism of Frost, these poems dance in and out of his Italian family and his old neighborhood, the leaving and returning that brings joy and loss. Whether the subject is his aging father's acceptance of his mortality, no longer bragging about living to one hundred, or a fishing trip with a youthful friend, who stole his girlfriend, these poems are written with a wisdom and compassion that this crazy world desperately needs"--Page 4 of cover.