{"id":4295,"date":"2021-05-17T18:42:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T18:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/?page_id=4295"},"modified":"2025-09-25T20:48:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T20:48:03","slug":"atrophy-of-a-the-boy-who-turned-into-a-wishing-well","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/?page_id=4295","title":{"rendered":"Atrophy Of The Boy Who Became A Wishing Well"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">WINNER OF THE THREE MILE HARBOR POETRY PRIZE: PRAISE FOR NATHANIEL BEK&#8217;S <em>ATROPHY<\/em>&#8230;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"708\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-708x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4309\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-708x1024.jpg 708w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-scaled-300x434.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-208x300.jpg 208w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-768x1110.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-1063x1536.jpg 1063w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-1417x2048.jpg 1417w, https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/a-TMH-Book-Cover-Atrophy-Sheridan-front-cover-psd-scaled.jpg 1771w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 708px) 100vw, 708px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>&#8220;In his collection,<\/strong> <strong><em>Atrophy of the Boy Who Became a Wishing Well,<\/em> Nathaniel C. Bek writes milk, blood, dirt, and earth back into poems. This is not a collection of city-slick wit and flirtation; these poems are pastoral and haunted by family dysfunction, premature rite of passage, and the struggle to survive life\u2019s unrelenting tragedies. Though deeply confessional, Bek provokes the reader asking, \u201cCan you be more than violence \/ More than abuse \/ More than a weapon\u201d and instead \u201cmake scrapes and scars a love letter to the living?\u201d The answers to these questions are critical for our times, our relationships, and our healing.\u201d &#8211; Tamara J. Madison, author of&nbsp; <em>Threed, This Road Not Damascus <\/em>(Trio House Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size\"><strong>*****<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><em><strong>\u201cAtrophy of the Boy Who Became A Wishing Well<\/strong><\/em> <strong>is a beautiful collection that explores masculinity and the costs of trying to meet its expectations, the freedom in ignoring them.\u201d &#8211; J. Bradley, Best Small Fictions 2019 Winner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size\"><strong>*****<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>&#8220;NCBEK&#8217;s poems are grown out of dirt and grass, a rural universe that uncovers the bones under the wheat fields and makes them walk again. The cyclical tragedy of generational curses, violent masculinity, and regret set against the misleadingly peaceful bucolia. Here, everything must kill to eat, even a VCR and especially the past. But there is still love and hope, a &#8220;dance floor of pain&#8221; to be found in the stillness. &#8220;There is iron in the soil here,&#8221; NCBEK says in &#8220;Body of Water,&#8221; and so it is with these poems- bad things happened and are still happening and it&#8217;s as if he is asking what will grow from what was lost. Plenty, say these poems.&#8221;- TC, Song Writer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Publication Date: June 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>ISBN: 9780998340654<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Pages: 76<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Trade paperback: 7 x10<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-7ee60a037b80b88be2dde625683df537\"><strong>BUY HERE ON AMAZON:<\/strong> <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0998340650\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"www.amazon.com\/dp\/0998340650\">www.amazon.com\/dp\/0998340650<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WINNER OF THE THREE MILE HARBOR POETRY PRIZE: PRAISE FOR NATHANIEL BEK&#8217;S ATROPHY&#8230; &#8220;In his collection, Atrophy of the Boy Who Became a Wishing Well, Nathaniel C. Bek writes milk, blood, dirt, and earth back into poems. This is not a collection of city-slick wit and flirtation; these poems are pastoral and haunted by family &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4295","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4295"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5531,"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4295\/revisions\/5531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3mileharborpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}