{"product_id":"counting-bricks-poems-paperback","title":"Counting Bricks: poems - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eGary Metras\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCounting Bricks explores the role of family in one's life; is a gift in many ways: generous, heart -felt, sensitive, compassionate, sweeter than sweet, rough as a working man's hands, and sometimes tougher than nails. The poems, individually and collectively, are a poignant testimony to family, its beauties and faults, its muscular heroisms, foibles, weaknesses; all of it realistically expressed in verse, but underlaid at all points with affection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Counting Bricks contains 45 poems, along with a 10-part long poem. Forty-one poems were first published in various magazines and reviews, including The Amherst Review, Chiron Review, English Journal, 5 AM, Poetry East, and Veterans for Peace Newsletter; four were reprinted in anthologies; nine poems were selected from the author's earlier chapbooks (The Yearnings and Today's Lesson); the long sequence poem, Seagull Beach, was published as a limited edition chapbook.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Counting Bricks is divided into five numbered sections: 1. poems range from a young boy's memory of physical pain to re-examining the meaning and lessons of Memorial Day from a personal perspective; included are two long poems, the first, \"Children of the Projects,\" is full of snippets of experiences and memories of growing up in a public housing project in the 1950s and 60s; the other long poem, this collection's title poem, depicts, without obvious emotions, the author's father's family (from the book's cover photo) and how the father fit within the fourteen siblings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Section 2.: The emotions and fears of the groom at his wedding; the perspective of a husband during his wife's ninth month of pregnancy; one small event as a father and how others perceive it; included are a group of poems sharing experiences of teaching high school.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Section 3.: \"Seagull Beach\" shares the calmness of spending time at the beach in summer and how that peacefulness, that idleness fills with memories and observations of what is around: watching a father and son playing in the water, the ever-present seagulls here and there, talking and squawking, someone's radio sparking a memory, as several other memories awaken: a failed teenage love, as juvenile tour of a factory that scares the child, a postcard found in a book bought at a used book store that inspires its own section of the longer poem.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Section 4.: \"Making Pierogis\" opens this section and shows a loving mother and her infant daughter; then poems lush with metaphors as a married couple grow in the routines of life amid snow, daffodils, dreams, and finishes with a mother and great-grandmother near the end of her life in language that is simple and direct to both clothe and mask the emotions of the family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Section 5.: A dozen poems showing how young love blossoms into family and long lasting affection. \u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 148\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.34 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 09, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46398102732935,"sku":"9781962847537","price":22.68,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/WpPcsgZMZj9781962847537.webp?v=1793569876","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/counting-bricks-poems-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}