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Dinner Parties
a sonnet series illustrated by artist Nancy Goodrich
with graphic design by Marylou Conley.
Epilogue: Exit 5, 1988
Dinner Parties (2017) an art book by Edwina Trentham with illustrations by Nancy Goodrich
One early spring morning, there they are, standing side
by side on that packed dirt pull-off near Exit 5.
rusting Ford huddled behind them –Christina, all
juts and hollows, her cobweb dress pooling around
her ankles, as it did at the birthday party
with elephant rides, thrown for her by the town three
years before; Arnie, grinning sunlight from his eyes.
She gave them to her ex, with the rest, when she left.
Epilogue: Exit 5, 1988 artwork —Nancy Goodrich
A mistake, she thinks, recalling wine-warm picnic
dinners where they never took sides. Now Christina
winces herself into the back seat, shrugs and smiles
at questions. At the hospital, she gives Arnie
the car keys, kisses Christina’s warm cheek, then walks
backward down the sidewalk, until they disappear.
—from Dinner Parties (2017
Dinner Parties is available from Edwina for $25 plus postage.
Stumbling Into the Light
Stumbling Into the Light
Antrim House Books (2004)
“ ‘The secret/ she teaches me over and over/ is brutality,’ Edwina Trentham says in one of several poems about gardening and her mother, from whom she learns the importance of ‘pinching back now/ if you want opulence later.’ Drawing her inspiration from a childhood in Bermuda that was indeed pinched—by a beautiful young mother’s icy reserve and a much older father’s elusive attentions—Trentham cultivates the past to produce the opulent display of poems in this volume. While the scenes she portrays are often dark and spare, her language spills over with color and light.” —Sue Ellen Thompson
“The gentle candor and vulnerability of these poems, matched with their hard-won truths, are possible only because their speaker has lived the ‘myth’ of paradise and family so deeply that myth has become an eloquently distilled memoir. Nearly every poem is an encounter with the human heart, acknowledging betrayal, anger, loneliness, longing, grief—gratitude also. These poems are grounded in a compassion that is never shallowly rooted.” —Margaret Gibson
