In “Self-Portrait With Father,” the speaker calls a meeting (real or imagined) with the abusive father. The diction is matter-of-fact, the syntax conventional; the imagery is simple and bare-boned.

like a bell rung backwards. Their necks push into different weather. I remember how that feels, Daneen Bergland's poems have appeared most recently in Denver Quarterly, Cerise Review, and Poet Lore, ...