New Jersey poet Frank Rubino will be reading from his work and in conversation with Marfa resident, poet Eileen Myles, at Stop & Read Books—215 Highland Street in Marfa—on Saturday, November. 15, at 7 p.m.
Myles will give an introduction to Rubino’s new collection of poems that recollect the poet’s childhood at Frank’s Lunch Service, his father’s luncheonette. Its scope is broader, though, as it transcends autobiographical particulars to connect with wider experiences of intimacy and camaraderie.
Myles said Frank is everyone’s poet, a smart purveyor of the “achy beauty of everyday.”
Praise for Frank’s Lunch Service
“Frank’s Lunch Service is a memoir told the way life is actually experienced: as a progression of prominent places, momentous memories, pivotal insights—at times chronological, other times kaleidoscopic.”
—Anton Yakovlev
“Blackballed from the Honor Society, wearing a Bradlee’s hoodie with no logo, it’s teenage Frank, working in his family’s diner on wheels. His father’s favorite comedies are Roadrunner cartoons. His mother woodburned “Love, Mom,” into the back of his guitar. If you want the real Jersey, it’s here.”
— Bob Holman
“These poems grapple with but never aim to define American masculinity. Instead, they offer an interior view of the things boyhood and manhood can encompass, which is to say, depth and complexity. Rubino’s poems challenge toxic masculinity by witnessing its presence, which gives its practitioners grace and a way to move past. I will read this book to my son one day.”
—Tamara Zbrizher
Frank Rubino has been published in The Platform Review, DQM, Thimble, Chaleur, Caliban, The World, Little Light, and Vending Machine, and was the featured poet in The Red Wheelbarrow 14.