A Lesson in Smallness

A Lesson in Smallness
Author: Lauren Goodwin Slaughter
Publisher: National Poetry Review Press
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2015-01-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9781935716372

A Lesson in Smallness is an invitation that builds--word by shiveringly, perfectly placed word, cadence by subtle, breath-catching cadence-into shifting vignettes, vistas, vision. There's nothing small at all here, it turns out. Vastly imponderable, and also close, and cherished: nature and human nature and the nature of art, all at once in these moving poems. A book to read and read again. - Robin Behn Early in her new poetry collection, Lauren Goodwin Slaughter speaks of "the necessary oomph." Which is also an excellent way of describing the pizazz of this wonderful book. Though titled A Lesson in Smallness, Slaughter's language is large, attentive, loving, and dynamic, even while acknowledging that our connections to others-in this case, as wife, mother, daughter-sometimes require a steep mortgage on a woman's most intimate and individual desires. I love this book's truthfulness and clarity of vision, and I'm betting you will, too. - Erin Belieu A Lesson in Smallness is a book seized by hunger and the umbilical. It is at once a travelogue, a junk drawer, a menu, a romance, an anti-romance, a cultural inquiry, and a mystery, which is to say it is fascinating and not at all aimless but deft, meticulous, and at the same time lavish. It proceeds by pleasurable and painful tension and release to a Rilkean abundance. The sensational third section of the book is an eruption into Slaughter's full powers of language in the service of transport. The "smallness" is a modest way to say her acts of attention expand our sense of what is possible. It's a beautiful [and dangerous] debut. - Bruce Smith Lauren Goodwin Slaughter a lesson in smallness The National Poetry Review Press Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is the recipient of a 2012 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. Her poetry has appeared in venues such as Blackbird, Blue Mesa Review, Hayden's Ferry, Hunger Mountain, Kenyon Review Online, and Verse Daily, among others. She is co-fiction editor at DIAGRAM and an assistant professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Originally from Philadelphia, she now lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband and two young children.

Atlantic Loyalties

Atlantic Loyalties
Author: Francis Andrew McMichael
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0820336505

Integrating social, cultural, economic, and political history, this is a study of the factors that grounded--or swayed--the loyalties of non-Spaniards living under Spanish rule on the southern frontier. In particular, Andrew McMichael looks at the colonial Spanish administration’s attitude toward resident Americans. The Spanish borderlands systems of slavery and land ownership, McMichael shows, used an efficient system of land distribution and government patronage that engendered loyalty and withstood a series of conflicts that tested, but did not shatter, residents’ allegiance. McMichael focuses on the Baton Rouge district of Spanish West Florida from 1785 through 1810, analyzing why resident Anglo-Americans, who had maintained a high degree of loyalty to the Spanish Crown through 1809, rebelled in 1810. The book contextualizes the 1810 rebellion, and by extension the southern frontier, within the broader Atlantic World, showing how both local factors as well as events in Europe affected lives in the Spanish borderlands. Breaking with traditional scholarship, McMichael examines contests over land and slaves as a determinant of loyalty. He draws on Spanish, French, and Anglo records to challenge scholarship that asserts a particularly “American” loyalty on the frontier whereby Anglo-American residents in West Florida, as disaffected subjects of the Spanish Crown, patiently abided until they could overthrow an alien system. Rather, it was political, social, and cultural conflicts--not nationalist ideology--that disrupted networks by which economic prosperity was gained and thus loyalty retained.

A Punkhouse in the Deep South

A Punkhouse in the Deep South
Author: Aaron Cometbus
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-09-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813072093

Radical subcultures in an unlikely place Told in personal interviews, this is the collective story of a punk community in an unlikely town and region, a hub of radical counterculture that drew artists and musicians from throughout the conservative South and earned national renown. The house at 309 6th Avenue has long been a crossroads for punk rock, activism, veganism, and queer culture in Pensacola, a quiet Gulf Coast city at the border of Florida and Alabama. In this book, residents of 309 narrate the colorful and often comical details of communal life in the crowded and dilapidated house over its 30-year existence. Terry Johnson, Ryan “Rymodee” Modee, Gloria Diaz, Skott Cowgill, and others tell of playing in bands including This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb, operating local businesses such as End of the Line Cafe, forming feminist support groups, and creating zines and art. Each voice adds to the picture of a lively community that worked together to provide for their own needs while making a positive, lasting impact on their surrounding area. Together, these participants show that punk is more than music and teenage rebellion. It is about alternatives to standard narratives of living, acceptance for the marginalized in a rapidly changing world, and building a sense of family from the ground up. Including photos by Cynthia Connolly and Mike Brodie, A Punkhouse in the Deep South illuminates many individual lives and creative endeavors that found a home and thrived in one of the oldest continuously inhabited punkhouses in the United States.

Fourteenth Colony

Fourteenth Colony
Author: Mike Bunn
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1588384144

The British colony of West Florida—which once stretched from the mighty Mississippi to the shallow bends of the Apalachicola and portions of what are now the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America's Revolutionary era. The colony's eventful years as a part of the British Empire form an important and compelling interlude in Gulf Coast history that has for too long been overlooked. For a host of reasons, including the fact that West Florida did not rebel against the British Government, the colony has long been dismissed as a loyal but inconsequential fringe outpost, if considered at all. But the colony's history showcases a tumultuous political scene featuring a halting attempt at instituting representative government; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle and perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of battles on land and water which brought about the end of its days under the Union Jack. In Fourteenth Colony, historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, introducing readers to the Gulf Coast's remarkable British period and putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of Colonial America.

Wasp Box

Wasp Box
Author: Jason Ockert
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2015-02-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0991640411

“Wasp Box is a thrilling debut that will no doubt soon garner lots of positive attention from readers and critics alike. It is that rare novel that manages to be profound while also being profoundly entertaining.” – Wraparound South “What develops in Wasp Box is horrific, beautiful, bizarre, poignant and mesmerizing. The sensory and visceral detail will cause readers to claw at their legs and necks, jam fingers into their ears, or hop on one foot to shake from the head what may lurk inside. Wasp Box portrays families at their best and worst, strongest and weakest, closest and most distant. Above all, it offers a portrait of the resilience and reliance necessary to survive.” – The Rumpus “Jason Ockert's first novel is strangely magnificent. Deep down, Wasp Box is a love story: A soldier searches for a way to come home to his sweetheart, a man attempts to be a better father to his son, a quiet boy and an odd girl find companionship in each other and an old man struggles to cope without his deceased wife. But it's also a story filled with a quiet, lurking dread. It touches on the fear that lives inside all of us, a fear that literally surfaces when a soldier returned from war births a swarm of parasitic wasps that have been nesting in his brain, feeding on his insides. Are you cringing yet? Good. Those are just the first two pages.” – Bookslut When a soldier returning home to a small New York town inadvertently transports an invasive species of deadly parasitic wasps, he sets off a frightening chain of events that throws an entire community into an unpredictable crisis. Escalating in its psychological, emotional, and narrative intensity, Ockert’s gripping first novel examines the choices individuals make in the face of danger, the limits of personal strength, and the value of family loyalty when the familiar world unravels.

Practical Guide to Using SQL in Oracle

Practical Guide to Using SQL in Oracle
Author: Dr. Richard Earp
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2008-08-22
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1449613039

Structured Query Language has become the standard for generating, manipulating, and retrieving database information. The dramatic increase in the popularity of relational databases, coupled with Oracle’s having the largest market share, has created a demand for programmers who can write SQL code correctly and efficiently. This book provides a systematic approach to learning SQL in Oracle. Each chapter is written in a step-by-step manner and includes examples that can be run using Oracle. Using the sample tables and data provided, readers will be able to perform the examples to gain hands-on experience with Oracle programming. Gain an understanding of basic SQL principles. Learn to generate, store, and edit SQL queries in Oracle. Develop joins, subqueries, and correlated subqueries. Work with XML and Oracle databases. Test your SQL knowledge with the exercises at the end of each chapter!