Read Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems

Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems

Patricia Roth Schwartz

4.9/5 (27191 ratings)

Description:To revisit childhood in one's sixties through the twin lenses of memory and poetry is a journey at once of both delight and peril. When I began to write--inspired by many other poets before me--from memory, I had an opportunity to grapple with happenings I had long held (I have an amazing memory--not always a pleasant thing!), but had never quite figured out. The poems allowed me to do that--at least in some measure.As I began to write more poems from that time in my life, I realized more and more that the book was not just about me and my immediate family, but about West Virgina: the seasonal agricultural workers never quite defined as such, the legacy of the coal mines, the rural poverty. It also became about the entire era of the fifties: into my own personal memories crept the polio epidemic and the administration of the Salk vaccine, the first nuclear testing shown on television (in fact, the infancy of television itself), the legacy of WW II veterans returning to start life anew in their small GI bill suburban houses, beginning families that would become tainted by what they had endured.And so the volume took shape. Several poems from my earlier full-length collection, "Planting Bulbs in a Time of War, and Other Poem (also from FootHills), already dealt with similar subject matter: "Just Rewards," "Blue Ribbon," and "Perihelion," and I consider them part of this body of work as well. What I ended up with is for me bitter-sweet: I feel for the girl I was in her scratchy school dresses drawing the birds of West Virgina in order please her father: I see in her the birth of the poet I would become; I still carry her emotional scars.Making the cover collage for the book was lots of fun and helped me to get used to images I have not always wanted to look at: the faces of those girls my sister and I were, emotionally buffeted by the storms of our family's problems, the young face of my soldier father... What I have learned is that creativity heals, that "story" become the vehicle for our own transformations--and so here is the book. I hope it speaks to you, the reader, and helps you to become closer to your own story.Pat SchwartzWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems. To get started finding Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 28

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: FootHills Publishing

Release: 2007

ISBN

Description: To revisit childhood in one's sixties through the twin lenses of memory and poetry is a journey at once of both delight and peril. When I began to write--inspired by many other poets before me--from memory, I had an opportunity to grapple with happenings I had long held (I have an amazing memory--not always a pleasant thing!), but had never quite figured out. The poems allowed me to do that--at least in some measure.As I began to write more poems from that time in my life, I realized more and more that the book was not just about me and my immediate family, but about West Virgina: the seasonal agricultural workers never quite defined as such, the legacy of the coal mines, the rural poverty. It also became about the entire era of the fifties: into my own personal memories crept the polio epidemic and the administration of the Salk vaccine, the first nuclear testing shown on television (in fact, the infancy of television itself), the legacy of WW II veterans returning to start life anew in their small GI bill suburban houses, beginning families that would become tainted by what they had endured.And so the volume took shape. Several poems from my earlier full-length collection, "Planting Bulbs in a Time of War, and Other Poem (also from FootHills), already dealt with similar subject matter: "Just Rewards," "Blue Ribbon," and "Perihelion," and I consider them part of this body of work as well. What I ended up with is for me bitter-sweet: I feel for the girl I was in her scratchy school dresses drawing the birds of West Virgina in order please her father: I see in her the birth of the poet I would become; I still carry her emotional scars.Making the cover collage for the book was lots of fun and helped me to get used to images I have not always wanted to look at: the faces of those girls my sister and I were, emotionally buffeted by the storms of our family's problems, the young face of my soldier father... What I have learned is that creativity heals, that "story" become the vehicle for our own transformations--and so here is the book. I hope it speaks to you, the reader, and helps you to become closer to your own story.Pat SchwartzWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems. To get started finding Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems

Down the Middle with a Nickel: a memoir of a West Virginia childhood in poems

More Books

The Names of the Moons of Mars: Short Fiction

The Names of the Moons of Mars: Short Fiction

Planting Bulbs in a Time of War, and Other Poems

Planting Bulbs in a Time of War, and Other Poems

Down the Middle With a Nickel: A West Virginia Memoir in Poems

Down the Middle With a Nickel: A West Virginia Memoir in Poems

The Crows of Copper John: a history of Auburn Prison in poems

The Crows of Copper John: a history of Auburn Prison in poems

The Names of the Moons of Mars

The Names of the Moons of Mars

doing time to cleanse my mind: an anthology from the Inmates' Poetry Workshop of Auburn Correctional Facility Auburn, New York, 2001-2009

doing time to cleanse my mind: an anthology from the Inmates' Poetry Workshop of Auburn Correctional Facility Auburn, New York, 2001-2009

Charleston Girls: a memoir in poems of a West Virginia childhood

Charleston Girls: a memoir in poems of a West Virginia childhood

Hungers

Hungers