{"product_id":"pinion-an-elegy-9780807127667","title":"Pinion: An Elegy","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this eloquent long poem, Claudia Emerson employs the voices of two family members on a small southern farm to examine the universal complexities of place, generation, memory, and identity. Alternating between the voices of Preacher and Sister, \u003ci\u003ePinion\u003c\/i\u003e is narrated by the younger, surviving sister, Rose, in whose memory the now-gone family and farm vividly live on: \"In the dream that recurs, like a bird returning, the place is still as it was--as though they went away, years ago, fully intending to be back by first dark.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSister tells of her observances in day-to-day life in the 1920s and her struggle to take care of her father, grown brothers, and Rose--\"the change-of-life baby\"--after the death of her mother: \"The hens had hidden their heads beneath \/ their wings; they blinded themselves as I dusted \/ the kneading bowl with flour sifted fine as silk, and so \/ I disappeared as I sank my fists into it.\" Preacher feels keenly the burden of running the farm and fears being the last one to live on the place: \"I was held fast there, pinioned, not \/ dying, growing numb and light, wait-crazed \/ and finally calm.\" Both wrestle with a desire for independence and the duty to home they are bound to by birth; neither marries or leaves. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003ePinion\u003c\/i\u003e is ultimately a wrenching elegy that Rose creates. She is the one who escaped, only to realize \"I survive them all, but I find I have become the house they keep.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e LSU Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/01\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780807127667\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 55\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.22lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.96h x 5.56w x 0.20d","brand":"Claudia Emerson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36644059185308,"sku":"9780807127667","price":16.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_7cb1a35b-df63-459e-89b8-b9c7242bebe2.jpg?v=1603857826","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/pinion-an-elegy-9780807127667","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}