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Song of the Closing Doors: Poems
From New York City subway encounters to memories of pickup basketball games on Fourth Street, a love letter to the past, and to all the relationships and memories our homeplaces hold, from the National Book Award finalist.
“I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of deceit . . . is honest and upright, steadfast and good"; even the busted buttons we press when waiting to cross the street make for elegy in a collection that brings us this poet at his burnished best.
Phillips finds his love of a complex, vibrant city extends to his dearest people—he writes for his friend Paul, dying of cancer; for his wife’s stormy eyes when they fight; for the baby boy he once woke at night to feed and change. All these and more pass through Phillips's elegant yet colloquial lines, in a book that shines with love and honesty on every page. As he writes, "If you're reading this / we were once friends."
“I will consider a slice of pizza," opens Phillips's poem "Jubilate Civitas." "For rare among pleasures in Gotham, it is both / exquisite and blessedly cheap." Thus, as throughout this collection, he celebrates a simple pleasure that "in a time of deceit . . . is honest and upright, steadfast and good"; even the busted buttons we press when waiting to cross the street make for elegy in a collection that brings us this poet at his burnished best.
Phillips finds his love of a complex, vibrant city extends to his dearest people—he writes for his friend Paul, dying of cancer; for his wife’s stormy eyes when they fight; for the baby boy he once woke at night to feed and change. All these and more pass through Phillips's elegant yet colloquial lines, in a book that shines with love and honesty on every page. As he writes, "If you're reading this / we were once friends."
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Hardcover
Published August 23, 2022
About the author
Patrick Phillips
93 books88 followersPatrick Philips was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned a BA from Tufts University, an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a PhD in English Renaissance literature from New York University. He is the author of the poetry collections Chattahoochee (2004), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, Boy (2008), and Elegy for a Broken Machine (2015), a finalist for the National Book Award. Through his poems, Philips frequently tells stories of earlier generations of his white, working-class family’s life in Birmingham, Alabama; in his work, he also grapples with race relations, the complex and violent dynamics of family relationships, and parenthood. In an interview for storySouth, Philips noted that he has found working in traditional poetic forms to be “generative” while acknowledging a poem’s need for both narrative and song.
His honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Copenhagen. He won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s translation prize for his translations of the work of Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt.
His honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Copenhagen. He won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s translation prize for his translations of the work of Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 2, 2022
Song of the Closing Doors begins with the cancer diagnosis of the author’s friend and memories of their their youth when they were in love with the world, oblivious that it might end. Phillips recalls when they were seventeen, “in that year when all/we ever did is play.”
A few poems later, his sister discovers a dog’s leash in a coat pocket and cries. “Death is a god/damned thief.”
I think of my peers who have passed, friends lost early to disease or accident. Parents who died of cancer. We have the ashes of four dogs buried in the front garden. I live in my parent’s house and am haunted by Mom’s reflection in the mirror where I often watched her apply red lipstick. I remember the dogs waiting at the door, sleeping next to the bed.
Loss is inevitable. I am thankful for poets who put life’s grief into words.
Phillips writes about marriage and the momentary pleasures of life, the joy of pizza, and the man on the train who warns “y’all don’t understand yet,/ but you will.”
I understand. Doors are closing, time is short.
May the Living
who read this
still speak of the dead
with wild imprecision:
sins all forgotten,
rage overwritten,
as even our bitterest
enemies shed
great crocodile tears
and pretend.
I hereby forgive
all the bullshit
that follows a death.
If you’re reading this,
we were once friends.:
May the Living from Son of the Closing Doors by Patrick Phillips
Thanks to A. A. Knopf for a free book.
A few poems later, his sister discovers a dog’s leash in a coat pocket and cries. “Death is a god/damned thief.”
I think of my peers who have passed, friends lost early to disease or accident. Parents who died of cancer. We have the ashes of four dogs buried in the front garden. I live in my parent’s house and am haunted by Mom’s reflection in the mirror where I often watched her apply red lipstick. I remember the dogs waiting at the door, sleeping next to the bed.
Loss is inevitable. I am thankful for poets who put life’s grief into words.
Phillips writes about marriage and the momentary pleasures of life, the joy of pizza, and the man on the train who warns “y’all don’t understand yet,/ but you will.”
I understand. Doors are closing, time is short.
May the Living
who read this
still speak of the dead
with wild imprecision:
sins all forgotten,
rage overwritten,
as even our bitterest
enemies shed
great crocodile tears
and pretend.
I hereby forgive
all the bullshit
that follows a death.
If you’re reading this,
we were once friends.:
May the Living from Son of the Closing Doors by Patrick Phillips
Thanks to A. A. Knopf for a free book.
February 25, 2026
I learned the word palimpsest and I’m obsessed. Also started annotating like Claudia ✨
December 14, 2022
Latest NYC book club book, and NYC was barely present. One of the poems was very NYC (the pizza one), but I thought it would have worked better as an essay. I liked some of the lines/stanzas, but there wasn't enough substance for me. Not bad by any means, but for short free verse poems, the idea has to be really, really strong.
September 12, 2022
Profoundly beautiful. Loss and longing and love - what a gift this collection is. Thank you to Knopf for the advanced copy. Go get this one. It should be in your home.
January 29, 2023
A couple of these were really beautiful. The rest didn't hit me very hard.
October 27, 2023
Good set of poems, many about death but also a great one about pizza.
May 25, 2024
A short bok of even shorter poems.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews