Emily Grosholz grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and has taught philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University for thirty-five years, with sojourns in France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, Finland, Costa Rica, Russia, Greece, Spain and Italy. She and her husband Robert R. Edwards (medievalist, rugbyman, and soccer coach) raised four children in State College, Pennsylvania, surrounded by small farms and green hills on one side and the town and university on the other. She is an advisory editor for The Hudson Review,and this is her seventh book of poetry.

Childhood contains illustrations by Lucy Vines.

Lucy Vines was born in 1929 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was raised in New York City, then came to France during the McCarthy era and has lived in Paris ever since, in a milieu of writers and painters. She is married and has one child. The Morat Foundation in Freiburg, Germany, the École des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes, France, and the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris have held retrospective shows devoted to her work. Her works are untitled.

Emily Grosholz grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and has taught philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University for thirty-five years, with sojourns in France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, Finland, Costa Rica, Russia, Greece, Spain and Italy. She and her husband Robert R. Edwards (medievalist, rugbyman, and soccer coach) raised four children in State College, Pennsylvania, surrounded by small farms and green hills on one side and the town and university on the other. She is an advisory editor for The Hudson Review,and this is her seventh book of poetry.

Childhood contains illustrations by Lucy Vines.

Lucy Vines was born in 1929 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was raised in New York City, then came to France during the McCarthy era and has lived in Paris ever since, in a milieu of writers and painters. She is married and has one child. The Morat Foundation in Freiburg, Germany, the École des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes, France, and the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris have held retrospective shows devoted to her work. Her works are untitled.

In lurid cartoon colors, the big baby
Dinosaur steps backwards under the shadow
Of an approaching tyrannosaurus rex.
“His mommy going to fix it,” you remark,
Serenely anxious, hoping for the best.

After the big explosion, after the lights
Go down inside the house and up the street,
We rush outdoors to find a squirrel stopped
In straws of half-gnawed cable. I explain,
Trying to fit the facts, “The squirrel is dead.”

No, you explain it otherwise to me.
“He’s sleeping. And his mommy going to come.”
Later, when the squirrel has been removed,
“His mommy fix him,” you assert, insisting
On the right to know what you believe.

The world is truly full of fabulous
Great and curious small inhabitants,
And you’re the freshly minted, unashamed
Adam in this garden. You preside,
Appreciate, and judge our proper names.

Like God, I brought you here.
Like God, I seem to be omnipotent,
Mostly helpful, sometimes angry as hell.
I fix whatever minor faults arise
With band-aids, batteries, masking tape, and pills.

But I am powerless, as you must know,
To chase the serpent sliding in the grass,
Or the tall angel with the flaming sword
Who scares you when he rises suddenly
Behind the gates of sunset.

-Emily R. Grosholz,
Childhood (Accents Publishing

On Childhood:

“These eloquent, edgy poems write of youth and parenting in powerful ways[…]”

-Eavon Boland

“[…]It is a joy to see these luminous and loving poems gathered into one richly expressive volume.”

-Dana Gioia

“Childhood by Emily Grosholz reminds me of how delightful, invigorating, and at the same time humbling my experience of parenthood was[…]”

-Tadatoshi Akiba

Emily Grosholz grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and has taught philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University for thirty-five years, with sojourns in France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, Finland, Costa Rica, Russia, Greece, Spain and Italy. She and her husband Robert R. Edwards (medievalist, rugbyman, and soccer coach) raised four children in State College, Pennsylvania, surrounded by small farms and green hills on one side and the town and university on the other. She is an advisory editor for The Hudson Review,and this is her seventh book of poetry.

Childhood contains illustrations by Lucy Vines.

Lucy Vines was born in 1929 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was raised in New York City, then came to France during the McCarthy era and has lived in Paris ever since, in a milieu of writers and painters. She is married and has one child. The Morat Foundation in Freiburg, Germany, the École des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes, France, and the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris have held retrospective shows devoted to her work. Her works are untitled.