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From a genetic standpoint, how could we exist without our grandmothers? Speaking sensibly, why would we try? The phenomenon of grandparenting is a relatively recent development in our social evolution, though one with profound results. Improvements to the Paleolithic lifestyle enabled more of our ancestors to reach elder status, setting off a feedback loop in which their economic and social contributions led to further progress and longevity. Knowledge compounded generationally, no longer at risk of vanishing before being passed on to one's children. Communities expanded, as did the complexities of their supportive bonds. Thirty thousand years later, little has changed in the role our grandmothers and grandfathers fill. Warnings about poisonous berries gave way to top-secret recipes for potato salad. Protection from predators led to date-night sleepovers. However, most of us are still fortunate to have at least one grandparent providing care a little warmer, somewhat odder, and considerably wiser than we can expect from those directly responsible for bringing us into this dismal world.
In electric grandma, Sara Matson melds the sweet and grotesque in celebration of our senior matriarchs and their multifaceted mystery. The exquisite anguish of grandmotherhood infuses these poems with an ethereal nostalgia lingering like a fog of Avon's finest. Performative femininity dictates the public routine and private anxieties of a life consumed by carrot shavings and defiled magnolias, expertly pressed trousers and binding knobbled joints. This is the classic caricature of grandma with a sparkling current pulsing throughout, an approximation of the liminial uncertainty distorting our youthful affection for a presence eternally shrouded in a haze of old-world sensibilities. Through her psychedelic survey of the electric grandma, Matson showcases the incandescent essence of a figure forever enveloped in memory, forever sovereign in "her kingdom of the yellowing photograph."
electric grandma is lovingly presented in a fragrant duochrome edition, suitable for curio cabinet display.
48 pages, handmade and numbered
$16 (US postage paid)