Trying on the Walrus Costume in the Ed Sullivan Theater of the Mind, by John Wall Barger

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

In this dynamic long poem, the poet speaks directly to John Lennon and to the poet’s own father. It begins when the father falls out of a tree, remaining in a hospital bed for weeks. The poem drifts backwards in time from the moment the poet, while listening to The White Album, hears the news of his father—braiding together the mother’s texts from the hospital and the history of The Beatles and of the father—back and back to the 1940’s.

Trying on the Walrus Costume in the Ed Sullivan Theater of the Mind, punctuated by trauma and affection, is Barger’s thorny love letter to two men who helped shape him.

John Wall Barger is the author of five collections of poetry and four chapbooks. He’s a contract editor with Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.