American Happiness: New Poems

By Jacqueline Allen Trimble

Winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize

American 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781603064200

Jacqueline Allen Trimble

JACQUELINE ALLEN TRIMBLE lives and writes in Montgomery, Alabama. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, a Cave Canem Fellow, and an Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellow. American Happiness, her debut collection (NewSouth Books, 2016), won the Balcones Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in various anthologies and journals including Poetry Magazine, The Offing, The Louisville Review, The Rumpus, and Poet Lore. She is a professor of English and chairs the Department of Languages and Literatures at Alabama State University.

Book preview

American Happiness

Jacqueline Allen Trimble

NEWSOUTH BOOKS

Montgomery

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline Allen Trimble. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN: 978-1-58838-327-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-420-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949493

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

For my husband, Joseph, with love.

Thank you for saving my life.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface: How My Mother Taught Me to Write Poems

CLOSURE

Everybody in America Hate the South

Closure

Second Sight

The Day After Her Mother Died

The Relativity of Midlife

Did Jean Paul Sartre Ever Ask Simone de Beauvoir to Go to the Winn-Dixie?

A Feast with the Sane

Things That Are Lost

If I Didn’t Write Poetry

Church Women

Fat Religion

Family Photograph: A Conjugation

THE GEOGRAPHY OF PASSION

Cinderella Finds Happiness with Her Third Husband

The Geography of Passion

Incantation

So Much that Fascinates Is the Blood

Lineage

The Retort I Wish I Had Made After I Forgot to Pack Your Favorite Trunks on a Family Trip to the Gulf of Mexico and You Called Me Trifling

We Are in Cozumel

How A Woman Carves Poetry of Her Bones

A Woman Explains the World to Her Children

A Woman Tells the History of Her People

AMERICAN HAPPINESS

The Violence of Ordinary Days

The Klan Panhandles for Donations at the Intersection of Court Street and the Southern Bypass

American Happiness

How To Survive as a Black Woman Everywhere in America Including the Deep South

What if Barbie Were a Reality TV Star?

Another Thing to Worry About

The Street Committee Meeting Is Now in Session

Ethnophaulism for the News

Gun Collector Shoots Unarmed Black College Student for Playing Music Too Loud

No Child Left Behind

Bridge Crossing, Selma, 2015

Emmanuel Means God Is With Us

Index of Poem Titles

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Preface

How My Mother

Taught Me to Write Poems

My mother was a foot soldier in the fight for civil rights, had a cross burned on her lawn, drove students to Lanier, a local high school, to integrate it, and was sued along with CBS for comments she made on television. She was unafraid, dignified, and determined. My mother was never loud. I don’t remember her ever raising her voice, but she had a way of saying things that made the listener acquiesce. All the black women of that generation I knew could do that. They might have used the interrogative form, but there was never any doubt of the command underneath the question. When my mother asked, Are you wearing that? or Are you speaking to me? I immediately changed into something more presentable or altered my tone.

She could spell most

Reviews for American Happiness

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this volume of poetry, which is not something I say often! Trimble addresses sexism, racism, love, life, recent events. When she addresses certain events, I could tell what she was referring to even though she does not provide long-winded explanations (because poetry!). My favorite is "Did Jean Paul Sartre Ever Ask Simone Beauvoir to go to the Winn-Dixie" and the entire "American Happiness" section.