Happily

by Joan Aleshire

Overview

Happily, Joan Aleshire’s fifth book of poems, examines a childhood of privilege and difference in a remarkable Baltimore family during the 1940s and ’50s. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935536222
Publisher:	Four Way Books
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

JOAN ALESHIRE teaches in the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College and lives in Vermont.

Table of Contents

Finding a Story for My Granddaughter 3

1 They loved fast horses.

Catchlights: Angelica Peale 7

Family Stories 9

Nerve Cigarettes 11

Before 12

Twelve Fairy Godmothers 13

Alive 14

(From the Album; Not Her Camera): 15

Beginning 16

In the photographs: 17

Maryland, Summer 19

If you'll ever get married 20

Heads Together 21

Three 23

In No One's Family 25

2 … a winter training

Hallowe'en, 1941 29

Waking My Sleeping Uncle, 1943 31

During the War 33

The Artist of the Dressing Table 37

Archival Footage 38

Packing-Crate Plane 40

FDR 42

The Barbells 44

Slow Down 45

First Day 46

Taking the Stage 47

Fire Drill 49

First Love 51

Christmas Angel 53

3 … from nothing

Learning the Birds 57

"Prince Darius of Persia" 58

Poems Every Child Should Know (1): "The Charge of the Light Brigade" 60

Sailing Class 62

Artificial Ones 64

Chasing Fire 65

Before I've figured out 67

Off-Key 68

Mind and Matter 71

Our Father's Forehead 72

Poems. Every Child Should Know (2): "In Flanders Fields" 74

But Pat, Limping 76

Freedom of Speech 78

4 … all you can

Hard of Heart 83

Fingers in the Bread 85

Bad Taste 87

Canter 89

Falling off the Roof 90

The Man Who Looked Like Henry James 92

Least Favorite Babysitter 93

Pillow Books 94

Purity, c.1954 96

Point of Order 98

Pizzas 99

Her Art 100

House Afire 102

Like Hemingway 104

Grandmother's Gifts 105

A Self 108

5 … like childbirth

The Elvis Argument 113

Astray 114

Tree of Life 116

My Mother, Reading 119

Lost Name of the Lost 121

Last Mirror 123

Like Childbirth (2002) 125

Clearing the Room 129

Descendants 130

What People are Saying About This

Stephen Dobyns

"Aleshire's poems are as much sound as sense, and together they don't so much talk about a vanished time as recreate it with all its many levels of actuality and gradations of emotion."