{"id":2835,"date":"2013-08-23T17:44:55","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T17:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=2835"},"modified":"2023-04-03T12:34:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T16:34:37","slug":"happily","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/happily\/","title":{"rendered":"Happily"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"Happily<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 144 pages \u2022 15.95
\nISBN-13: 978-1-935536-22-2<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

Happily<\/em><\/h1>\n

Joan Aleshire<\/h2>\n

Happily<\/em>, Joan Aleshire\u2019s fifth book of poems, examines a childhood of privilege and difference in a remarkable Baltimore family during the 1940s and \u201850s. The collection offers vivid glimpses of 20th century history as it explores the trials, challenges and joys of relationships within the family and beyond that have influenced the developing consciousness of a particular self in the world.<\/p>\n

Happily<\/em> strolls through an American half-century in which \u201cthe fear of atom bombs would make us \/ crouch under our desks\u201d and changing cultural values like \u201cThe Elvis Argument\u201d and a mother\u2019s \u201cAre you going out in THAT?\u201d led to family rifts. Aleshire\u2019s evocative poems bring to life, in measured vignettes, a time of great upheaval, but they also offer a wise reflection on the power of memory and narrative. In the opening poem, a story of a fall from a horse told to a granddaughter who \u201csits riveted \/ by this slip from safety,\u201d while Aleshire\u2019s own childhood is remembered as imaginative games played amid \u201csoldiers in fancy uniforms \/ killing one another in etchings that lined the upstairs hall.\u201d In one poem, the cleaning-out of a bureau yields tender family secrets in the form of handwritten notes; in another, finding \u201cthere\u2019s no one left to ask, of the ones \/ who might remember,\u201d the narrator turns to her imagination, reminding us that poetry, like memoir, binds people together as audiences, listeners, and tale-tellers: if it\u2019s often the case that \u201cthe camera preserve[s] us,\u201d Aleshire\u2019s poems set pictures and details in rhythmic motion.<\/p>\n

BEFORE <\/em><\/p>\n

As she described it,
\nthat summer was the hottest ever.
\nTwo months pregnant, too sick<\/p>\n

to eat, she lay on the porch
\nreading The Pickwick Papers,
\nwhich may explain my inclination
\nto laughter. She took pills
\nfor the nausea, which may explain
\nmy arms\u2019 inclination to the strange.<\/p>\n

In the album,
\nat the beach, she leans back
\non her elbows, stretches out
\nin a modest but revealing suit
\nthat shows her thickened waist.
\nShe wears dark glasses with
\nstylish light frames: carefree,
\nall our life before her.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 144 pages \u2022 15.95 ISBN-13: 978-1-935536-22-2 Add to Cart [\/column] Happily Joan Aleshire Happily, Joan Aleshire\u2019s fifth book of poems, examines a childhood of privilege and difference in a remarkable Baltimore family during the 1940s and \u201850s. The collection offers vivid glimpses of 20th century history as it explores the trials, challenges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2835","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2835"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19219,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2835\/revisions\/19219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}