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Next Generation Indie Book Awards

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Editor and publisher Sandi Gelles-Cole at the 2011 Indie Book Awards at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. CHILD OF MY CHILD was honored as one of the best independently-published anthologies of the year.

HALLOWE’EN   
By Linda Lancione

Our tiny princess—prickly costume shed--
sits on Mom’s lap in a pink sweatshirt, watching
Grandpa pushbroom the sidewalk under the laden persimmon.
“Hi, Nana,” she fans me a wave. I drop a kiss
on her head, then pluck a low-hung hachiya,
and settle it into her hands. “Put it by Nana’s purse,”
I say, reaching for more. She hesitates,
points to my black bag, “Eh?” Again, “Eh?”
gesturing at the fruit. Oh, purse/persimmon. To her,
they sound the same. It’s a time of distinctions, between
toes and toast, Grandpa’s cat Dusty and Nana’s cat Duffy,
between the grandpa who comes every day and Papie,
who’s arrived from afar and now emerges from the house,
face more veined than last year, scotch in hand.
Our son, right behind him sipping the same bitter gold,
sees the swept pile of squirrel-ravaged fruit
and goes for the ladder. In moments a full-blown harvest
is on, Grandpa reaching for the high ones, Papie and I
chaining the red-orange globes over to our granddaughter,
who bumps them into a paper bag with serious joy.
It’s a mythic moment, generations harvesting in amber light.
Soon we’ll help this girl sow her own backyard pumpkin,
learn snails and kales, sweet potatoes and potato bugs.
Later she’ll glean a sense of single malt and sauvignon,
slowly make out for herself what nourishes, what poisons.
 

BABYSKIN: NOTES FOR A GRANDCHILD
   By Barbara Adams

At first, you will get all that you want--
            milk, sleep, softness, warmth,
            and love for nothing.
Then, gradually, you will get to know
            pain, fear, disgust, loneliness
through your soft babyskin.

For a long time, if you are a lucky one,
            you will enjoy timeless fun--
            running, throwing, singing, skipping,
and giggling in the dark game of hide and seek.
For a long time, if you are a lucky one,
            the worst you will suffer is broken
            skin or bone, the fever of a cold
            and happy goosebumps.

Then, precious heir, suddenly one day
            Time begins
and you will want what you can’t always get--
            lobster, French wine, down bed, cradling arms,
            love for nothing.
You will try to keep what can’t be saved--
            joy, peace, content, and soft
            babyskin.
You will come down with the chronic fever,
            incurable, the weariness and chill
            of a broken promise, a frozen dream,
            and the thrill of a breakable heart.

Finally, my innocent descendant, you will learn to sing
            (if you’re an heir of mine)
            of pain, disgust, hate, and loneliness.
But you will not be afraid if you know all this
            and love someone—or two—for nothing.
You will live, then, as well as can be expected
            till your babyskin is tough as mine.

 

WHILE RIDING the GLOUCESTER HAMMOCK
                                        I THINK ABOUT MORTALITY
By Sherry Gage Chappelle

Don’t picture some ropy, lacy item
slung from two trees and waving
in a Carolina breeze, this is serious
boat bedding styled from New England
fishermen, rigged from our porch rafters
just the way Dad hung it fifty years ago.

On another porch he sat with his mother
swapping tales of family borne on the breeze,
gone like Steven whose face is still sixteen
in my head, who left thirty years of bread ties
in a drawer, who banked his sperm,
grew earthworm farms.

I pump the hammock, push against
the floor, tack from yesterday to today
to tomorrow. One small grandboy sleeps,
head on my breastbone. Outside a fallen bird
flutters to right itself. We want to be
gods, but must settle for keeping our balance
on the uneven boards of general store
lives filled with Band-Aids, quilting thread,
and dried blueberries the color of this craft.

SHRAPNEL
  By Janet M. Lewis

Shrapnel, a grenade exploding,
my family has blown itself apart,
to Texas, Jersey, Ohio, Penn’s Woods.
Explosions hurt.

Now in searing, secondary explosions,
their families are flying apart to colleges
and jobs across our huge country.
Explosions hurt.

You can’t complain. You exploded
from your parents’ nest, and they from theirs,
they from theirs, and they from theirs,
back to explosions that crossed oceans.

Explosions hurt.



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CHILD OF MY CHILD: POEMS & STORIES FOR GRANDPARENTS is now available in a hardcover edition.

Child of My Child is also available in a Kindle edition for only $2.99!

WHILE OUR GRANDSON CONNOR WAS BEING BORN
   By Michael Estabrook

     During the 12 long hours that poor Laura struggled through her labor with Connor, her second child, her dutiful husband at her side, my wife and I, as dutiful grandparents, looked after Brooke, their first child.
     We watched The Wiggles and Sesame Street on TV, went shopping at The Rugged Bear for new mittens and boots, played the tickle game and rolled around on the sofa, marched from room to room blowing a lovely tune on our recorders, took naps (Brooke and Bapa), explored every 

                                                        Read the rest . . . PLUS poems by Hugh Fox, Barbara Crooker, and Mary Makofske 

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