Songs from the Back-in-the-Back

If you grew up in America in the seventies you grew up in the back of the car squabbling with your siblings fighting for the best seat singing car songs. The littlest kids were thrown in the back-in-the-back a private cockpit with a view of where youve been. Now we have iPhones and TVs in the car but back then you had to entertain yourself: staring out the window torturing your parents with endless knock-knock jokes the occasional screaming contest. It wasnt pretty but it was fun at least in this poet-passengers rearview memory.This collection begins with poems inspired by her father the family driver/chief storyteller. They capture aspects of the father-daughter relationship as well as the role reversal that takes place as child becomes adult and parent becomes old. The second half of the chapbook takes to the open road: memories of family trips a scrapbook of stories from a storytelling family. Unapologetically narrative in form these poems pay homage to grandparents cousins aunts uncles and the ancestors. The chapbook concludes with three mini-essays (messays) about car rides family and the possibilities of discovery when youre trapped next to a window with an ever-changing view.