Pride+Poetry Featured Reader Series: Sean Hanrahan

This week, we'll be posting poems from each of our featured readers headlining the New Cumberland Pride Pride+Poetry event. Join us Friday 7/22 at 6:30 outside the New Cumberland Library for an open mic followed by our main event. Check out the New Cumberland Pride Guide to find out all the awesome stuff going on Saturday at the first annual Pride Picnic!

Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn (2019 Cajun Mutt) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (2018 Moonstone) and Gay Cake (2020 Toho). His work has also been included in several anthologies, including Moonstone Featured Poets, Queer Around the World, and Stonewall’s Legacy, and several journals, including Impossible Archetype, Poetica Review, and Voicemail Poems. He has taught classes titled A Chapbook in 49 Days and Ekphrastic Poetry and hosted poetry events throughout Philadelphia.

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Kevin

For KD

I think of the Dad you could have become—

you had the clothes, the demeanor, the around-

the-house handiness, the jokes, the factoids.

I regret the child that will never be

that possibility erased from genetics,

that unborn child will never enjoy the experience—

all too rare I find—of having a father who would know

how to bond with his son without once

trying to change him into someone easier to love.