I am the keeper of the family stories, letters, photos, terrible telegrams, and diaries. What began as genealogy and chasing ancestors became a desire to learn the personal stories behind the names and dates, what their lives were like, and what character traits I may have inherited from them.
I love this poetic chronicle of three generations of an Iowa farm family, making a go of it for 125 years on the same farm, dating from the great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran, arriving for the first time on a newly-purchased farm.
The lives of these folks and their neighbors were shaped by two world wars and the Great Depression, thriving through faith, love, self-reliance, and community.
The Horse Lawyer and Other Poems chronicles the struggles and triumphs of three generations of an Iowa farm family over a 125-year period. The "story" begins with a soldier coming home from the Civil War and setting foot for the first time on his newly-purchased farm and ends when the land next changes hands in the early 1990s. The book is the story of the family, their friends, and their neighbors as they try to adapt to the changing world around them. Their lives and personal aspirations are shaped by two world wars, a harsh climate, the dust bowl, and…
This was my first eye-opening introduction to family history imaginatively shared through lyric poetry, prose poetry, and flash prose.
Stories of women and men from Michigan to Illinois to the Netherlands, women dealing with infant mortality, vanity, housewife skills, divorce and other hidden stories, even a brave heroine saving a family's home.
Eric Hoffer Award Finalist Kin Types is a collection of lyric poetry, prose poetry, and flash prose that imaginatively retells the lives of private individuals from previous generations. Using family history research, the writer has reconstructed the stories of women and men from Michigan to Illinois to the Netherlands. Read together, the pieces create a history of women dealing with infant mortality, vanity, housewife skills, divorce, secret abortion, the artist versus mother dilemma, mysterious death, wife beating, and a brave heroine saving a family's home.
Merri Melde has spent over two cumulative years of her life traveling, answering to an inexplicable need to see the world, to experience different adventures, cultures, people and places.
Taken from her travel journals, Somewhere Else features some of her backpack travels in Nepal, where she trekked the Annapurna Circuit;…
I found this collection of missing family members a beautiful remembrance through winsome details and photographs.
An especially dear one called “To Write a Sermon” shows the author as a two-year-old with pencil and paper sitting next to her pastor father smoking a pipe and working on a sermon.
When a loved one dies, the family will often turn to the photograph albums as an act of solace, to keep their loved one with them just a little while longer. Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance arose from that experience. The collection opens with three free verse expressions of raw grief, followed by a series of photographs from the author's family album, each paired with a poem written in tanka. Taken together, they tell the story of a loving family lost.
I was drawn in by poet Chad Elliott’s heartache for his homeland in rural Iowa, a sense of place for ancestral longings of the generations before him.
His poems are a compelling exploration of three generations—a sense of loss as a son, a “rough aesthetic" deeply missing as a man, and hope as a father.
Chad Allen Elliott's path to poetry began with a love of music. He has performed original songs across the U.S. for over 20-years, winning several awards for composition including the Woody Guthrie Songwriting Award in 2009. Early in his career, he learned some verses do not need musical embellishment. They stand alone in their own cadence. Since that time, Elliott has penned nearly 2,000 songs and released 22 albums.
In Rumble & Flash, Elliott shares poems composed during his time on the road. These poems are steeped in archetypal themes like fatherhood, love, nature, and spirituality.
Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…
I found these poems about the complexity of the author’s family so poignant.
They reveal fragments of memory: a decades-long knot in the heart of her mother, a snake bite kit in a sock drawer, stories unshared, and mothering an adopted son.
When her mother's secret sadness becomes unveiled for the poet, it sends her on a mission to learn about her birth father.
Judith Prest's luminous book about families opens quite simply: Wherever I go/I bring a crowd along.Grafted Tree follows the treasure map of her rich experience in only the way this gifted poet can do. The reader takes us on a journey with her through the well-remembered stories of her life and newly unveiled secrets she has recently discovered.
Written by a poet at her peak, Grafted Tree above all will resonate as a love letter to all kinds of family experience, written with understanding, compassion, and truth. As she writes in the book's concluding poem, I carry their history; /it…
The legacy of a small log church was nurtured through my motherline and woven into the blessing and mystery of my own inheritance.
Glimpses into these women's lives, along with cameo appearances of the men they married, reveal a legacy of faith and hope while navigating challenging times through seven generations.
Nineteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery
by
Leslie Johansen Nack,
At nineteen, her larger-than-life father dies suddenly in a plane crash in Mexico. In the wake of his death, she descends into addiction—caught in a downward spiral, her only solace is her next fix. Ultimately, however, Leslie’s story is one of resilience: she chooses sobriety and happiness, builds a healthy…
On August 8, 2020, 40-year-old Stephanie Lincoln seemingly had the perfect life. She just had the wedding of her dreams, owned a successful business, and was traveling the country in an RV with her husband and 3 dogs. An innocent choice to go on a short hike in the Olympic…
