Poetry. "Sometimes the most complicated stories of our lives can be put into the shortest of forms. In this small book of poems, Dennis Etzel Jr. recounts a fragmented chronology from his childhood to his fatherhood. Living their lives with love and integrity, Etzel's two mothers raised him together despite the status quo resistance they daily faced in Topeka, KS. Now the father of sons, Etzel's poems draw as much from his own memories as they do from the larger social context of marriage equality--and in bridging that gap between the personal and the political with lyrical grace and political conviction, THE SUM OF TWO MOTHERS is a riveting little book that is as much about growing up with two mothers, as it is about becoming a father who is raising his sons with a more inclusive--but equally protected--model of the world."--Kristin Prevallet