American HappinessAmerican Happiness is an eclectic collection of verse from a bold poet of everyday life, Jacqueline Allen Trimble. Ironically titled, the work addresses everything from the death of parents to racial tension to the encroachment of coyotes into urban spaces. The title is taken from a poem in the book which considers the kinder, gentler exploits of Sheriff Andy and Deputy Barney during a time when Southern law enforcement was neither universally kind or gentle. Says Trimble, “Barney had one bullet/and no need for a rope./The only burning he did was for his Thelma Lou.” On her poetic journey, which takes us from the personal to the political, Trimble probes our racial divide. She is by turns compassionate and fierce, cutting at our hypocrisy with the knife of her words and willing us toward our better common humanity. |
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Contents
| 9 | |
| 15 | |
The relativity of midlife | 22 |
Things That Are Lost | 29 |
A conjugation | 36 |
The geography of passion | 42 |
The retort i Wish i Had made After i Forgot to pack | 46 |
A Woman Tells the History of Her people | 52 |
American Happiness | 58 |
Another Thing to Worry About | 64 |
gun collector shoots Unarmed Black | 70 |
| 77 | |
Common terms and phrases
Alabama AmericAn HAppiness antibiotics Ask Simone Barbie belly black child Black Woman blood body bones brown casserole child Church Women Cinderella Finds Happiness Collector Shoots Unarmed confess coyotes Cozumel cul-de-sac dances and laughs Davis elementary dead dogs Ethnophaulism eyes FAT reLigion father felt threatened fire forgive geogrApHY oF pAssion girl go quietly Gun Collector Shoots hand head hose hun-a imagined Jean Paul Jigaboo killed languid curls laughs and dances lips mayberry mother mother’s neighbors never old women sing opie patient as assassins Paul Ever Ask pee standing pickaninny poetry praise pray puke Retort I Wish rose Sane Schoonover Second Sight selma sheriff shine Shoots Unarmed Black shot skin smile smoke makes languid smokes and smokes soUTHern BYpAss spooks street student Tarbaby and spearchucker tell Thing to Worry Third Husband throw a basketball tongue TriFLing VioLence oF orDinArY Winn-Dixie
Bibliographic information
| Title | American Happiness |
| Author | Jacqueline Allen Trimble |
| Publisher | NewSouth Books, 2016 |
| ISBN | 158838327X, 9781588383273 |
| Length | 80 pages |
| Subjects | › › Poetry / American / African American |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |