Eldest daughter : poems / Ava Leavell Haymon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haymon, Ava Leavell.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Physical Description:

xiii, 82 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2013]

Summary:

In Eldest Daughter, Ava Leavell Haymon displays her mastery of the craft and engages us with the poetic gifts we have come to expect from her. As in previous collections, she combines the sensory and the spiritual in wild verbal fireworks. Concrete descriptions of a woman's life in the mid-twentieth-century American South mix with wider concerns about family lies and truths, and a culture that supports or forbids clear speech. In a passage from "The Holy Ghost Attends Vacation Bible School," the physical world of children interplays with the divine: The least likely place the Holy Ghost ever descended was in east Mississippi. Red clay hills and church politics soured on years of inbreeding Every deacon drove a pickup. At Bible School, the kids played red rover and rolled down the sharp slope behind the Baptist church. He recognized the dizziness at the bottom and the fear of having your name called, but the grass stains, the torn blouses, and sprained wrists-these were beyond Him. Haymon's poems encourage us to revel in the natural world and enjoy its delights, as well as to confront the difficult realities that keep us from doing so. Book jacket.

Contents:

Preacher's Daughter

In Gratitude for a Southern Baptist Upbringing 3

"Louie's: Home of the Veggie Omelet" 5

Eva/Ave at the National Gallery 7

In Which I Forgive My Mother Her Intentions 9

Preacher's Daughter 11

Contralto Recitative with Angel Chorus 15

The Holy Ghost Develops Binge/Purge Syndrome 17

The Holy Ghost Attends Vacation Bible School 18

The Holy Ghost Tries Out for Little League 19

The Holy Ghost Moves to Kilgore 20

Church Schism: Every Body's Got to Be Some Place 21

Four-Year-Old Invents a New Curse Word 22

The Holy Ghost Designs the Perfect Woman 24

Why the Groundhog Fears Her Shadow

Changing Weather Patterns 29

Shining 30

The Center Cannot 32

She Begins with the Sky 34

The Child Born 35

The Dream Runs On 36

Color of the Moon 38

The Heads of Old Dolls 39

Groundhog's Prayer of Petition 40

Why the Groundhog Fears Her Shadow 41

How Two Became One Again: Sestinas' Work Done 43

Winter's End 45

Staying at the Willard 46

Parish Courthouse, Cameron 49

Woman in the Middle 50

The Castle of Either/Or: a fairy tale

The Castle of Either/Or 53

Daughter's Fealty

Continental Divide 61

Steam Calliope 63

Bass Fishing with a Hulapopper 68

Roundball 75

"My Father Will Have Two Dozen on the Halfshell" 80.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780807153369

0807153362

9780807153376

0807153370

OCLC:

841187533