David Rivard was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. With his first verse collection, Torque, David Rivard distinguished himself as a writer of volatile poems with striking imagery. In this work Rivard concentrates on the working-class tenor. Fast automobiles, assembly lines, basketball games, and drug users are all developed to tell the stories of childhood, relationships, and life that are prominent in Rivard's work, along with a sense of despair and an awareness of life's hardships.
By David Rivard
The days are dog-eared, the edges torn,
ragged—like those pages
I ripped once out of library books,
for their photos
of Vallejo and bootless Robert Johnson.
A fine needs paying now
it’s true, but
not by me.
I am no more guilty
than that thrush is
who sits there stripping...
By David Rivard
After his ham & cheese in the drape factory cafeteria,
having slipped by the bald shipping foreman
to ride a rattling elevator to the attic
where doves flicker into the massive eaves
and where piled boxes of out-of-style
cotton and lace won’t ever be
decorating anyone’s...
