Father’s Day is just around the corner, so we’re sharing some dad- and father figure-related excerpts.

Remember, we’re offering 20% off our Father’s Day collection with code DAD20, and free shipping on orders over $25!

This week’s except is actually a poem from Matthew Walsh’s debut collection of poetry, These are not the potatoes of my youth. Stiffen your upper lip; this bittersweet poem will likely pull at your heartstrings.

As a special bonus, we have a reading from the author.

Moonshot

In his baseball years, Dad never got home
but he loved to swear and win. Left-
field position of the baseball diamond,
a Rocket. He loved to smoke his opponents
and smoke Players Extra Lights,

drank blue Gatorade for electrolytes.
I preferred the original Blue Jays, had none
of my father’s athletic prowess, wore
a large red Converse sweatshirt to hide
my body which Dad had ripped
off me because I looked too much like a fruit,
a tomato, which I had thought he loved
so much. He drank Kokanee with tomato juice
his elixir of youth, made his language loose, Oh,
Dad, driving home nine innings in, oh how you danced
into the land of the living room lamps.

In this confessional debut collection, Matthew Walsh meanders through their childhood in rural Nova Scotia, later roaming across the prairies and through the railway cafés of Alberta to the love letters and graffiti of Vancouver. In this nomadic journey, Walsh explores queer identity set against an ever-changing landscape of what we want, and who we are, were, and came to be.

Why not pick up a copy for Father’s Day? Get 20% off with code DAD20.

Matthew Walsh hails from the eastern shore of Nova Scotia and has twice travelled by bus across Canada. Their poems may be found in the Malahat Review, Arc, Existere, Matrix, Carousel, and Geist. Walsh now lives in Toronto.