Songs for My Father is a raw and honest collection of free verse poetry about the author’s relationship with her father. It chronicles how his anger and abuse left her emotionally trapped for many years, and how she found her way back into herself through her art.

Katherine Lazaruk takes the reader through her early childhood experiences, drawing connections between how family, music, and learning shaped the writer and artist within her. It is a poignant window into the things that so often go unspoken, the elephants in the rooms of our families. Readers who have experienced what it means to be the outsider or scapegoat in their family of origin will be uplifted by this vision of how to break cycles of abuse and reclaim themselves through therapeutic and artistic journeys.

Songs for My Father is at times dark, at times uplifting, and always deeply human.