Little Million Doors: An Elegy

by Chad Sweeney

A lyrical lament for the poet's father in one long poem primarily in couplets, it examines the dimensions of life and death.

Genres: Poetry

59 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Chad Sweeney is the author of PARABLE OF HIDE AND SEEK (Alice James, 2010), ARRANGING THE BLAZE (Anhinga, 2009), AN ARCHITECTURE (BlazeVox, 2007), and A MIRROR TO SHATTER THE HAMMER (Tarpaulin Sky, 2006). He is editor of Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds: the Teachers of WritersCorps in Poetry and Prose (City Lights, 2009) and coeditor of Parthenon West Review with his pal, David Holler.

His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, New American Writing, VERSE, Colorado Review, Denver Qtly, Crazyhorse, Forklift, Barrow Street, Pool, Slope, GutCult, H_ngM_n, Electronic Poetry Review, Coconut, Interim, American Letters & Commentary, Bird Dog, the tiny, Tea Party and elsewhere. He is a PhD candidate at Western Michigan University where he teaches creative writing and serves as assistant editor of New Issues Press in Kalamazoo Michigan.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may now know enough about couplets or how to approach them to fully appreciate this collection. I maybe wasn't able to fully appreciate this collection because of this. That said, I did enjoy it a fair amount. Maybe 'enjoy' isn't the proper word as much 'moved by' or 'intrigued by' might be a better phrasing. This collection is more of a sensory experience to me. I have no experienced loss like this (thank you God), but reading through this frames how loss like this is for others. There is something haunting yet comforting about the fluid, loose nature these stanzas go together. Perhaps that itself says something pretty profound about death. Overall, if any of you are looking for a poetry fix, I would suggest this. If you are used to couplets, enjoy more abstract poetry, poetry that is more sensory rather than narrative or based on imagery, then you'll probably like this more than me.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweeney, who won the 2019 Night Boat Prize for “Little Million Doors,” wrote a heartfelt elegy for Sweeny’s father Everett John Sweeney. “Little Million Doors” conveys the profundity of loss through strikingly sparse pages.
Couplets are the dominant stanza form in “Little Million Doors,” interspersed with single-line monostiches. In my reading, I noted only two segments on facing pages (“A single light” with a cinquain and “And I was carrying my blood to a” with a septet) to contain stanzas longer than two lines. “Only time which has” consists entirely of monostiches. In the tightness of these stanzas, Sweeney works the important turns of poetry with the deletion of punctuation and grammatical enjambment frequently within a single line through grammar that strikes the reader at first as broken and then as fitting for a mourner.

A masterful work!

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, spare. In deep sorrow, this poet reveals paradoxes that make up a life, its beginning and ending not so determined.

A series of blue doors

The days come floating
Away from me

or

My life stared
Where it wasn't

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, especially when read aloud so you can hear the rhythm of breaks and pauses.