NVN Monday: 2 Poems Reporting on Small-Town America
“DEAR JASON ALDEAN” by Laurie Rosen; “WHAT THEY TRIED IN MY SMALL TOWN” by Chad Parenteau
DEAR JASON ALDEAN
by Laurie Rosen
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In my little town there were moms at home doing laundry, schools we could walk to, one car in every driveway, sometimes two. Our neighborhoods teemed with children — kick ball or wiffle ball in the middle of the street. There was a bowling alley, ice cream parlor and golf driving range, In my little town there were teachers who required us to memorize poems, write haikus, read Icarus, Hiroshima, Shakespeare and the Bible. And in my little town, a football coach taught health class. A young teacher who spoke openly on the VietNam war, civil rights and the slaughter of indigenous people was disappeared, replaced by an elderly retired teacher who bored us with dates and white washed facts, screamed at us to pay attention. Our only lake, once a summer retreat, was declared a Superfund waste site. There was rampant drug and alcohol abuse, breast cancer, brain tumors, overdoses and suicides. In my little town, mostly white and Christian, we sang China Town is Burning down, during recess, to the tune of ring-around-the-rosy at the one Chinese American boy in our third grade class, who stood off to the side, while we held hands and skipped round and round.
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Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, Gyroscope Review, The New Verse News, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of The New School, One Art, and elsewhere.
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WHAT THEY TRIED IN MY SMALL TOWN
by Chad Parenteau
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Glenn set a car on fire. Surprisingly stuck around until the police arrived. Jesse got his girl pregnant. Denied it. His family told hers never contact him again. Tim’s Dad shot my aunt’s cat from his window, kept guns Tim grabbed from drawers. Brian and James tried college. Drank their first night. Thought licorice would conceal breath. Some trolled on Facebook when Trump lost, angry that our world was bigger than where they lived.
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Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Nixes Mate Review, and the anthology Reimagine America from Vagabond Books. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.