Logan Wyatt's Reviews > Zero to Three: Poems

Zero to Three Review

The book of poetry Zero to Three, written by F. Douglas Brown, takes a deeper look into the relationship between a father and his daughter. Many of the poems focus on events that took place in the daughter’s life as she was growing up. There are also poems that examine the role that family members play in a child's growth. There are many memories throughout the poems that are significant times in the child's life. Not only is the author a father to his daughter, but also a son who has his own relationship with his father.
In one poem titled “Divorce Attempts to Answer My Daughter’s Questions,” the poet is trying to convey to his daughter that he is going through a change in life that will affect both of them. She is asking him questions related to the situation, and he is trying to answer them in the best way possible that does not put her in a difficult position. At one point, his daughter asks him, “Is mommy your girlfriend how come you don't love mommy?”(Brown, 23) He is unsure how to answer this but wants to ensure that he is answering truthfully and in a way that his daughter will not retaliate against him. This seems to be one of the poet's main goals in making sure that he is able to be open with his daughter yet understand that she is so young that she will take everything he says with a grain of salt. Later, in the poem “The Talk,” the daughter reveals events in her life to the father and mother. It is written as a back-and-forth between what the mother says and what the father actually told the little girl. When the mother tells her daughter, “We didn’t know birth control, just the sex”(Brown, 30), it shows that the mother is more factual when she is speaking to her daughter about the realities of life. The progression of the poetry then takes the reader to the later stages of life in which we learn that the author’s now “​​stricken with my stepmother's Alzheimer's, so much could often go missing.”(Brown, 57) Life goes through stages, and in this stage, life is lost, and all you are left with is memories. When Alzheimer's takes hold of a person, the first thing that they lose is those memories.
This book of poetry is a representation of watching a person grow and fighting out ways to handle a particular stage of growth. With each stage of maturity, there are new obstacles to handle, and with parenting, you are not always able to think about the right answer or what is next. The book of poems will not be for everyone, but there is a way for everyone to connect to at least one of the poems and its message.