Trailer Park Fragments by David Ensminger

Rusty — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:22:00 +0000

Mike Young published this e-book, Trailer Park Fragments: A Place called Whispering Lanes, through his Magic Helicopter Press. I urge you to check it out. I was going to say it gives you a perspective on trailer parks you maybe haven't seen before but that's horseshit. It just affects me, who has never lived in a trailer park but has known a few. It's an impressionistic set of pieces I think you'll enjoy– proems, not prose poems–because if anything's linear here, it seems accidental. Great stuff at HTMLGIANT. Here's a taste:

In the longness of summers
in the pool with the fake green glow,
the sloughed off burnt skin,
and the tinge of chlorine …

on the surprisingly smooth body
flying down the slide, and the under–
sized buoys bobbing like plastic eggs…
in the fence pressed together like uneasy
fabric, in the fresh face free of makeup,
in the swim cap and lone tree…
I dramatized a struggle
for human definition, a medicine show
of the mind …

I used to sleep in the hallway
with the light on. Or in my sister's
pink bedroom, next to the drawer
with marijuana and Playgirls, between
the David Bowie poster and the
six inch harlequin doll from JCPenney.

Redneck Press with Fried Chicken and Coffee » mike young

Trailer Park Fragments by David Ensminger