Knucklehead (Poetry)
Author: Nick Godec
ISBN: 979-8-953140-02-7
Publisher: River Paw Press
Page Count: 34
Language: English
Price: $17.99
“Any reader facing a book called Knucklehead might correctly conclude that a sucker punch is on its way. Employing language that caroms between street talk and tender reflection, in a formally varied and intensely honest series of poems, Nick Godec explores drugs, alcohol, sexual bad behavior, and the despair underlying all of the acting out a messy coming of age entails. The book begins with a kind of murder and ends with a kind of love, revealing the way a young man can move out of toxic masculinity into something much harder and more beautiful.”
— Ruth Danon, author of Turn Up the Heat
“Nick Godec’s debut chapbook Knucklehead is fearless and reflective. His poems trace a life’s arc with clarity, sharpness, warmth. His language can have a certain athleticism: it ranges from stolidly plain to swift leaps of imagination. There’s a big-hearted precision to how he works moments in a poem, insisting we look beyond the smoke, the gasoline, the powder, the bars. What we get to see: a boy, haunted by an early and terrible loss, ever uncomforted. A teenager and then a man, turning to addiction to both reject and attract pain and chaos. And finally, a man reaching for and finding tender, intimate redemption. Knucklehead reminds us how hard it can be to simply sustain our lives, and why it’s worth all the effort.”
— Jana Martin, author of Russian Lover and Other Stories
“Puff, swig, snort, pass out./Tried to unlearn my oldest ache” Nick Godec writes in a pantoum in the center of Knucklehead, his unflinching chronicle of trauma-induced self-destruction and rehabilitation. He blames himself for his dog’s accidental drowning under a raft when he was eight and alone on the water, but his physician parents seemed to make it worse. He’s on his own in this ordeal, and it takes its toll. Fights, betrayal, drugs and alcohol, and the search for escape from who he believed he was, particularly portrayed in self-deprecating prose poems, kind of anti-mantra poems. Even when he’s comfortable and clean, married and living in the country, writing, and playing tennis, a walk through gentrified old haunts can tempt him. Yet he is capable of unlearning his oldest ache, thirteen years caring for another dog, and sober; “…pen and paper, don’t forget, breathe, don’t ever forget.”
— Amy Holman, author of Captive
Knucklehead is a heartfelt and honest portrayal of youth, struggle, recovery, and resilience. Through a voice that is both vulnerable and unflinching, the collection traces a deeply human journey toward self-understanding, transformation, hope, and renewal.
— Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, poet and judge 2026 Silent River Poetry Prize
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