Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    First Born
    First Born
    First Born
    Ebook119 pages26 minutes

    First Born

    By Ryan Lessard

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Having known Ryan Lessard for nearly 30 friggin years, OF COURSE I couldn't refuse his request to wrangle up a few persuasive words of assurance and joyousness. Only thing is, as kids, while he was busy tryna gain the speed to beat me at the 50 yard dash, or the strength to take me in an arm wrestling match, he overlooked one crucial thing: I always turned in my work either late or tooth-skin status, if at all. Clearly, he's a rad enough guy to be longtime friends with a girl who might destroy him in a break battle, or a spelling bee, or a fierce, multi-classroom spitball battle- which is maaaad respectable. But this isn't to say I trust in his judgment of others' propensity for promptness. I almost said no, but his latest book ‘Thirty-3’ (happy birthday, mang) was nearing its release date. I'd already felt jerkbaggish enough in my tardiness, so here we are.

    Ryan's writings have been tempered by the dorktastic stylings of the nerd program we'd both been deemed brainiacal enough to hack, back in the 80's. While he may *KNOWWWW* the words 'bumbershoot', 'swarthy' and 'antidisestablishmentarianism', he opts for considerably less uncool and exquisitely coloriffic, finely crafted terms. I mean, one cannot simply rock such a museum-worthy, bountiful white-man afro such as Ryan's dome has known, and be heard spouting off, all pocket protector posse style. Know, instead, that while you mentally ingest Ryan Lessard's writings that he coulda been one of the beasties- but he's just as much bookworm as he is b-boy.
    —Shana Simpkins...5-10-2014

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRyan Lessard
    Release dateJun 10, 2014
    ISBN9781310980152
    First Born
    Author

    Ryan Lessard

    poet, writer & random thinkerfrom Brockton, MA

    Read more from Ryan Lessard

    Related to First Born

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Party Pooper

      Jan 29, 2023

      Party Pooper
      2 min read

    • Article

      Diary Of A Country Mouse

      Mar 3, 2020

      THURSDAY, 10 DECEMBER. Giles shows us the sample mice and I am, as if for the first time, overcome with joy. Perhaps when I was a child I had feelings like this—but not in many years. I look, for instance, at a small gray mouse, smaller than the othe

      17 min read

    • Article

      Why We Write

      Aug 12, 2020

      AND WHY WE STOP THIS kind of thing used to thrill me—a few dozen writers huddled in a dark bar, taking turns at the mic, hooting and cheering one another afterward. I could sense the way it felt to most of them—nourishing, holy, the air charged with

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Ties That Bind

      Jun 4, 2023

      The Ties That Bind
      9 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2019

      It’s soothing when the newly dead are way older than I am. This guy was 95. His picture—middle-aged, archaic glasses—freezes him somewhere around 1970. But even when they are my age and live in my town and share so many of my habits and interests tha

      6 min read

    • Article

      It’s OK

      Sep 20, 2019

      It’s OK
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Brand-new ending

      Jan 29, 2022

      A Brand-new ending
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: M.C. Mah

      Dec 5, 2018

      Standing athwart the evident passage of a year, shuddering, “No.” Never have I claimed to be well-read; I exhibit reading behavior. Taking honest account of it feels akin to my book of the year 2017, Alissa Nutting’s “Grub Street Diet,” wherein she w

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Truth Accuracy Could Never Achieve: The Millions Interviews M. Randal O’Wain

      Nov 11, 2019

      This trauma told me stories of who I was in relation to home and the men who raised me. These memories were so horribly fucking bright I couldn’t turn away. The post A Truth Accuracy Could Never Achieve: The Millions Interviews M. Randal O’Wain appea

      6 min read

    • Article

      Shame Is Ever-Present When You’re Sitting in a Cell

      Oct 23, 2020

      Between a strained relationship with my family and the death of a good friend, I’ve struggled to feel like I’m worth something.

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Home of Two Cliffs

      Mar 1, 2021

      The Home of Two Cliffs
      9 min read

    • Article

      Corona

      Jul 1, 2022

      one month today this poem’s trackedcrisis calm and crisis againmuch boredom much time passedby narrating the passage of timewords clung to high brancheshow did I get way up hereI was asleep half asleepavoiding time or hidingbehind under in timetime w

      4 min read

    • Article

      Old Masters

      Jul 27, 2023

      Old Masters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Exhaling

      Dec 7, 2021

      Around me are fifty or so men, in whose company I will sit and be silent for ten days. I eye them discreetly, wondering who among them is going through a crisis. Who, like me, has a family. Who’s single, who’s been dumped, who’s poor or unhappy. Who’

      52 min read

    • Article

      Perfection

      Jun 9, 2020

      For years I could barely write a page. I thought I was becoming a virtuoso of smallness while the grief, which is wordless, occupied an ever-greater volume. My friend lived in the estates on the bad side of town. Let’s go to the forest, she said when

      9 min read

    • Article

      Silver Hair and Silver Linings

      Feb 20, 2024

      Julia and I and our fishing buddies, Cory and Dan, were recently invited to Costa Rica to fish with Capt. John Adams aboard Griffin, one of our 65’s. Silly as it may sound, I had never been out upon the Pacific before. Those warm breezes and flat-cal

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for First Born

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      First Born - Ryan Lessard

      Having known Ryan Lessard for nearly 30 friggin years, OF COURSE I couldn't refuse his request to wrangle up a few persuasive words of assurance and joyousness. Only thing is, as kids, while he was busy tryna gain the speed to beat me at the 50 yard dash, or the strength to take me in an arm wrestling match, he overlooked one crucial thing: I always turned in my work either late or tooth-skin status, if at all. Clearly, he's a rad enough guy to be longtime friends with a girl who might destroy him in a break battle, or a spelling bee, or a fierce, multi-classroom spitball battle- which is maaaad respectable. But this isn't to say I trust in his judgment of others' propensity for promptness. I almost said no, but his latest book ‘Thirty-3’ (happy birthday, mang) was nearing its release date. I'd already felt jerkbaggish enough in my tardiness, so here we are.

      Ryan's writings have been tempered by the dorktastic stylings of the nerd program we'd both been deemed brainiacal enough to hack, back in the 80's. While he may *KNOWWWW* the words 'bumbershoot', 'swarthy' and 'antidisestablishmentarianism', he opts for considerably less uncool and exquisitely coloriffic, finely crafted terms. I mean, one cannot simply rock such a museum-worthy, bountiful white-man afro such as Ryan's dome has known, and be heard spouting off, all pocket protector posse style. Know, instead, that while you mentally ingest Ryan Lessard's writings that he coulda been one of the beasties- but he's just as much bookworm as he is b-boy.

      Shana Simpkins…5-10-2014

      Why Not

      5-6-2014

      someone asked me why I write

      only thing I could think of saying

      was I can’t imagine not writing

      never gave myself that option I guess

      to not write so much more than anyone

      sees or knows drowning in a sea of no’s

      I am therefore I think therefore I write

      that’s about the best answer I could give

      so from this point forward

      the answer to this question may differ

      but will always begin with

      —why not…

      First Born

      6-7-2014

      they tell me the seed was planted

      north of the border

      on a camping trip to New Brunswick

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1