Father’s Day

by Carol Dreiling

The Friday before Father’s Day
I saw a father and a grown daughter
Walking down Kimberly Avenue
He had his arm around her shoulder,
When I saw this
A sharp pain hit me across the heart
I wish I was this daughter
How lucky she is
How I long for my father to celebrate Father’s Day
I miss him so much
Weeks before Father’s Day
I hear the ads and I want to run away
I don’t want to hear or think about
Father’s Day,
When the day comes
I stay busy
And try not to feel the emptiness too much
But it still seems
So UNFAIR
Dad—I wish you were here

Carol Dreiling started keeping a journal on summer visits with her grandmother in Ohio. Her first poem was published while she was a student at Warren Wilson College in the late 1960s. A feminist newspaper in Minneapolis later published a diary she kept while working in a paper box factory. From 1999 to 2004, she edited Sporadic News, the Asheville Mushroom Club newsletter. In October 2011, WNC Woman published her article about selling gourmet mushrooms to independent restaurants.

About Father’s Day—The poem, “Father’s Day,” is included in my memoir in progress, Healing from Murder. I wrote this poem in 1991 to help me struggle with the death of my Dad.

Previous post: Good News Has Its Place

Next post: New Year’s Eve, 1962

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Issue 28 – Spring 2023
Home
- Elizabeth Lutyens, Editor in Chief
  “It’s Only Human”
Interview
- Great Smokies Writing Program Coordinator Jennifer McGaha
  With Special Features Editor Janet Moore
  “What’s Next: Building on Firm Foundations”
Nonfiction
- Amy Jane Lynch
  “Walking the Barrel”
- Amanda Burns
  “Remembering Clare: A Love Story”
- Zoe Rhine
  “The Prankster’s Laughter Stone-Skips Across the Lake”
Fiction
- Billie Harper Buie
  “Refugees”
- Pam J. Hecht
  “The Lions”
Poetry
- Judith A. Davis
  “Stopping by a Farmstand on a Summer Afternoon”
- Karen Luke Jackson
  “Open Heart”
- Margaret Bishop
  “Dying to Be Born”
Craft Session
- Bruce Spang
  “Syntax as Style in Poetry:
  The Invisible Craft of an Artful Sentence in Poetry”
Reflection
- Zoe Newton
  “Selective Memory”
Archives
The Great Smokies Review

Elizabeth Lutyens, Editor-in-Chief, Founder
Janet Moore, Special Features Editor
Julie Abbott, Submissions Editor
Patrick Pickering, UNC Asheville Intern
Michael Mauney, Photographer

Jennifer McGaha, Great Smokies Writing Program Coordinator
Lilly Danzis, GSWP Administrative Assistant
Tracey Rizzo, Dean of Humanities, UNC Asheville

The Great Smokies Review is an online publication of The Great Smokies Writing Program, a joint effort of the UNC Asheville departments of Literature and Language, Creative Writing, and the Asheville Graduate Center.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
We accept student fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction submitted by faculty of the Great Smokies Writing Program and other UNC Asheville writing programs. Submitters will receive a guidelines checklist to complete.

© 2023 The Great Smokies Review

All rights reserved. This publication may be freely distributed only in its entirety and without modification, and only for private use. Excerpts may be reproduced and distributed only by permission, except in the case of quotations for use in reviews and interviews. The creative works published in The Great Smokies Review do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of its staff, The Great Smokies Writing Program, or the University of North Carolina Asheville.