Eden Waters Press Home Anthology, Edited by Anne Brudevold
Eden River Press, 2007
$16.50
Paperback: 82 pages
ISBN: 9780615181301

Eden Waters Press Home Anthology featured names I recognized from the Boston small press scene and introduced me to more than a few talents whose work I'd not yet encountered. I enjoyed it immensely.

Home Anthology is a well-put-together volume of memoirs—essays and poems—revolving around a common theme: home. The writing is solid, down to earth, and emotive. It's difficult to pick favorites from this slim yet copiously illustrated volume, but here are excerpts from a few of the selections:

When told, as children, to tie messages to the strings of balloons and let them fly, Iris Dunkle's response, in "What Falls from the Sky" is

My brother and I already knew
No one would find our messages—
love is what lifts up and leaves.

Paul Hotovsky beautifully describes a dream of long division in "House Over the World":

she's sailing through a math test,
jumbles of numbers swelling and breaking
gently down all around her,
the stalwart rudder of her number 2 pencil
steering her steadfastly through

In "Bovina, 4 PM", Holly Anderson compares a landscape to the written word with a fresh metaphor:

scribbled languages
on the billowing meadow

There's a Braille of ridges and blue divots
while winds from the south erase whole passages

In "Here I Am Anyway", Lo Galluccio takes the reader back and forth between New York City and Boston, through the ins and outs of her creative mind, her loves and losses and victories, to conclude

Maybe artists never have a real home. Maybe their home is in their creations anyway…. Tonight, I feel rooted in this place. Here I am in this place that most people would call my home…. Here I am anyway.

I tried to find a line or two to pull from Penny Harter's haunting "Sometimes Late at Night" but the piece hangs together so tightly as a whole that I'll leave it to the reader to discover it on his own.

Which pretty much sums up my recommendation. Get yourself a copy of Eden Waters Press Home Anthology.

17 comments; 0 subscribers

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 / 11:48:44

sue

Tell us something memorable/intriguing/different about your home. That's it. That's all you have to do to win. All entries must be received by midnight PST January 20, 2008. We'll pick the person whose description tickles us to win the review copy. (Open to US/Canada residents only. kthx.)

 

Thursday, January 3, 2008 / 04:47:11

paryjeja

The most memorable thing about my house is that the kitchen cabinets are painted hunter orange (I also have a wall of the orange colored fruits and coffee grinder wallpaper.) My now-deceased mother-in-law wanted her kitchen to be bright!

 

Thursday, January 3, 2008 / 15:57:23

myeager4

The most intriguing thing about my house is that I have a bright red chair shaped like a hand. I like to sit in it and think and call it the "thinking hand." It's very helpful when thinking through something, though it looks moderately out of place in my otherwise traditionally decorated living room.

 

Thursday, January 3, 2008 / 22:02:08

tomornorman

Our house is old, and doesn't have a lot of closet space. I had to make places to store my artwork and supplies where the kids wouldn't get them. So I made some hiding areas between a wall, and in the "hanging ceiling" of our kitchen. Someday, when some other family lives here, and go to tear down that butt-ugly ceiling, they will be in for a big, and maybe profitable surprise.... because I keep forgetting that old art is up there !

 

Thursday, January 3, 2008 / 22:02:11

drming5k

The most intriguing thing abaut my house is that it was built on the site of an ancient Indian Burial ground.

 

Friday, January 4, 2008 / 03:26:22

shakerbaby

Well, a man tried to kill himself in my house.Something about attaching himself or sitting on a big wooden beam in the basement and setting it on fire. That didn't kill him in the house, but later he died at the hospital I guess. It was years ago. Creepy though!

 

Friday, January 4, 2008 / 10:27:45

sunnymama

I am a fan of the small house. Our home started out at 600 sq. feet and we turned the garage into a bedroom when I was pregnant and now have 800 square feet. I did daycare for 6 children a day at our home and people often wondered how I did it, but I can't imagine keeping track of 6 children if I had 2 levels, or multiple rooms for them to go running into. I can stand in the center of our house and see what everyone is doing.

 

Friday, January 4, 2008 / 18:40:08

sweepinsista

11 windows
2 doors
full of love, absent of chores

 

Monday, January 7, 2008 / 03:49:59

edurbin57

HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Friday, January 18, 2008 / 07:52:43

borogirl

Everyone who visits think we are eccentric - we have 9 Easter Island statues in our yard that my husband made himself. 500 pounds of cement each!!

 

Friday, January 18, 2008 / 15:22:28

mslindagene

We, (my daughter & I) love our little house because nearly everything that's in it was given to us. I was disabled 10 years ago when our house started to get its personality. We named our house after a peachy-pink donated paint job with left over paint was applied. They did the scalloped eaves in a chocolate brown. Then, as I looked at our house and saw the air-vent spinning, I asked the painter if he had any red paint to paint that spinning ball with. He did and when complete I stood back and said it looked like a pink cupcake with chocolate frosting and a cherry on top. We live in a predominate Hispanic Neighborhood and so the name came "Casa Cupcake" came to be. It's adorable!

 

Friday, January 18, 2008 / 17:33:03

amawitch

Something interesting about my house!!! My teenagers picked the paint and painted it. I have a lavender kitchen with pink and blue splotches all over it, I have a navy blue bathroom with purple and black hand prints, my living room walls are off white with green ivy paint trailing down the wooden slats. My laundry room is black, including the windows. And its awesome because they keep it clean.

 

Friday, January 18, 2008 / 18:11:02

pwhite98270

I have my 18 year old son's ghost in my house. Justin died 1 year ago suddenly at home. Since then we have had lights go on and off. His smell comes into rooms. Orbs appear in pictures taken and the stereo comes on at night usually playing some rock song like Swing Life Away, Broken or Every Rose has a Thorn. Each comes at the apportune time when I am missing him most.

 

Sunday, January 20, 2008 / 05:55:04

CHOOCHOO

Not sure if it's too late to comment, but if it is, enjoy my comment anyway. :-)
Every house I've lived in has the ability to attract the trash from all around. If there is trash in the area, I'll wake up in the morning to find and fetch it. It's just plain weird.

 

Sunday, January 20, 2008 / 07:14:19

icybird

Most intriguing thing actually was a good friend of mine. His home had board games as wall decorations. They would take the game board and pieces out and glue them up, it was pretty cool and sure added a conversation piece. A collection of lunchboxes in the laundry room and a collection of colorful pencils in their room added to the "different"!

 

Sunday, January 20, 2008 / 15:51:50

kaboodle

When I first met my husband's (then boyfriend's) parents his mother asked me in which part of our city I had grown up. We were both stunned to learn that my parents' 1926-built home originally belonged to her uncle, and she knew the house well. My husband and I now have owned it for 25 years, and have had some interesting insights from his now elderly relatives about how the house has changed and how it is still the same.

 

Monday, January 28, 2008 / 08:20:49

sue

thanks to all who played along, and congrats to mslindagene! I'll be sending you an email to verify your address, etc., and the book will be on its way to you shortly!