Rain: A Dust Bowl Story, Guest Post and Invitation from Shelley Shaver

How to survive hard times is a challenge many American women are facing today. Riah McKenna is a young farm wife. Along with her husband, her son, and her best friend, the outcast Louise Kemp, she is struggling to survive the worst economic and environmental disaster in our nation's history.

This is a new epic launching with one new mini-episode put up each day. A blog invites you to contribute your reflections on how people respond when the chips are down.

Three ways to enjoy this new literary work:

(1) Movable Feast Method: start at the beginning and read a little each day,
(2) Diet Method: with coffeecup in hand, read one episode a day (takes about a minute), or
(3) Bakery Window Method: pick out individual episodes at random to find out more about Riah and her friends.

Click on: http://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.com/

(There will be widgets and gadgets as soon as the author can get her daughter's boyfriend to tell her what those are. Until then, your patience and your participation are invited.)

There is something about the Americans who survived the Depression--our parents' and grandparents' generation--that has always fascinated me.

I think it takes a unique kind of courage to deal with hard times. It requires facing up to discouragement day after day. Our parents and grandparents did just that. My dad grew up on a cotton farm much like the one I describe in my work.

I spent 10 years writing this epic and 20 years waiting for it to find a platform.
I studied oral histories and went to Washington D.C. There I was allowed to hold in my hands letters hand-written by farmers during the 1930's to President Roosevelt. Looking at those yellowing pieces of paper, I felt the living presence of that time. And I listened to my dad's stories of those years.

When you reach middle age, you begin to feel more strongly the desire to pass something on, pass something down. Literature and history are meant to do just that. As I add one episode a day to the Dust Bowl Story, I am hoping that the failures and successes of the characters in that story will be a support to us now.

Here’s a sample mini-episode. It takes place in a farmhouse in the 1930s, and Louise, Riah’s new friend, has come over to get a permanent. Riah is very quiet; Louise is very loud. But she is grateful to be at her friend’s house rather than with her husband. Riah has a good marriage; Louise does not.

64. The Permanent Goes On

Fine idea, Louise thought,
To come here.
True, the wave solution
Burned in rings around her ears
And down her cheeks.
“Ow! Ow! Riah, Lord,
You’re blinding me!”
Her companion’s damp cloth
Wiped her eyes.
“All right,” said Louise,
But with a pout.
Good with her hands,
Riah liked to learn.
All intent,
She scanned the diagram.
Wielding combs
As if they were dirt hoes,
She would part the wet hair,
Row by row.
Each finger-width was daubed
In wave solution,
Cracked blue bowl.
Soaked, Louise’s hair
Turned russet-hued,
Dark as homespun.
Riah’s fingers stretched it
And then rolled.
Awkwardness now gone,
She wound quick,
Expertly tucking ends.
That solution stinks
To the high heaven, thought Louise.
She shut stinging eyes,
Tilting her head. Noses ran
As odor thick as incense
Wrapped both Riah and her client
In its mist,
Invading every nook.
Riah’s fingertips were
Dabbling, plashing.
Out back, chickens
Scratched, fussed amiably.
Louise stretched her shoulders.
She made believe
That she lay on a beach:
The big river
She’d known as a girl.
“Do you know, Riah–”
She half-drawled the sound out,
Teased the name–
“I saw the Mississippi?”
“Well, I swan,” said Riah,
Busy marveling:
How well she rolled!
A novice, too.
Miffed by her absorption,
Louise tried
For more impressive news:
“My folks came from New Orleans.
Ma was born there.”
“New Orleans,” said Riah.
Patty’d had a permanent.
The others talked about it–
Now she knew.
“Your people–where they
From?” inquired Louise.
“Grandfolks, Massachusetts
Come through Arkansas.”
Louise eased in her chair.
She yawned. Her scalp was tender–
Riah didn’t hurt at all.
The flies kept distant,
Bumping on the wall.
She wiped her face once more.
“Do you know,”
Louise said, sleepily,
“What women call the curse
In New Orleans?”
“What?” said Riah,
Not much keen to hear.
She wound up a roller
Nice and tight.
“They call it,” Louise replied,
“‘The flowers.’”
Laying her head back,
She closed her eyes. She laughed
To herself.
Outside, hens were scratching.
“They say,
‘Got the flowers,’”
She said, low.

You can contact Shelley Shaver.