American Happiness. Jacqueline Trimble
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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
Preface: How My Mother Taught Me to Write Poems
Everybody in America Hate the South
Did Jean Paul Sartre Ever Ask Simone de Beauvoir to Go to the Winn-Dixie?
Family Photograph: A Conjugation
Cinderella Finds Happiness with Her Third Husband
So Much that Fascinates Is the Blood
How A Woman Carves Poetry of Her Bones
A Woman Explains the World to Her Children
A Woman Tells the History of Her People
The Klan Panhandles for Donations at the Intersection of Court Street and the Southern Bypass
How To Survive as a Black Woman Everywhere in America Including the Deep South
What if Barbie Were a Reality TV Star?
The Street Committee Meeting Is Now in Session
Gun Collector Shoots Unarmed Black College Student for Playing Music Too Loud
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 any word,