Post by shayepoet on Oct 16, 2008 1:25:21 GMT 2
A White Girl Lynching
Elizabeth P. Glixman[/b]
Excerpt from the Artist’s Statement:
"These poems are ultimately about respect for all individuals and races. The idea of respect is shown in the reverse in many of the poems about what happens to people when they are "lynched." I interpret lynched as meaning having an important element of individual dignity taken away from an individual or group. Many of the poems are women oriented. Some uphold the right of animals to true care and respect. Other poems talk about the effects on a society of not allowing differences to be heard."
Sample poem:
Momma Yells Hallelujah-Poem
She tries to please her husband
agreeing with everything he says.
Yesterday he told her people
create their own lives.
“Look at Helen down the street,
got so fat, her husband, had to cheat on her.
Henry says it’s her own damn fault.
He told Helen, ‘ If you get fat
I'm leaving you for a younger thinner thing.’”
More often now, she wears her momma’s skirt
stained with a circle of pee.
Momma wore this white linen
when she got old, fat, incontinent.
It was washed clean,
scrubbed day and night after she died.
Still it makes her feel close to love
Ain't getting any here she thinks
when her husband isn't looking.
Her husband watches the skirt
with its dim yellow stain float
between her legs. He tries to look away
from what he has to do -
“I told you,” he says, “I'd leave you
when you got fat and old, ugly like
your mother and Helen. I told you.”
He handed her a fifty dollar bill.
“Buy a new skirt and underwear,” he said.
That was the last time she saw him.
She goes to Momma’s grave on Sundays
wearing Momma’s panties, dark wool,
no stained skirt, Sunday straw hat.
She places flowers she bought for her momma
fifty dollars worth.
Momma smiles, shouts, yells hallelujah,
And the other buried people
sing hallelujah. Then finish with an amen.
Appears in storySouth
Review excerpt for A White Girl Lynching:
"Glixman mixes colorful characters (a hallelujah-shouting Momma, a cat named Rabbi Simon, a Manoschevitz-toting Eve) to test her theory that it is not race or even species that divides us, but lack of compassion: “Who knows who is who in this world of sorrow?” Glixman paints an answer at once anguished and hopeful: .”
--Kimberly Becker, Her Circle Ezine
About the author:
Elizabeth P. Glixman is a poet and writer. Her poetry and fiction credits include The Pedestal Magazine, Wicked Alice Poetry Journal, , In Posse Review, Frigg, Snow Monkey, Her Circle E-zine,3 A.M. Magazine, Muse Apprentice Guild, Women of the Web: A Poetry Anthology, Velvet Avalanche Poetry Anthology and Tough Times Companion, a publication of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Her author interviews, articles, book reviews and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in Whole Life Times, Cezanne’s Carrot, www.eclectica.org, Chocolate For A Woman's Soul and Hadassah Magazine. Her first poetry chapbook, A White Girl Lynching, was published by Pudding House Press in 2008.
Blog: elizabeth-inthemoment.blogspot.com/
A White Girl Lynching: tinyurl.com/43jrbl
Pudding House Chapbook Series
ISBN 1-58998-665-2
27 pages
$10.00 plus shipping
[glow=teal,2,300]BUY HERE, BUY NOW:[/glow]
Pudding House Publications
81 Shadymere Lane
Columbus, OH 43213
Phone (614) 986-1881
jen@puddinghouse.com
MC/Visa orders via email are accepted as well.
[/font]