& Dining Poetic H ill

by Sandra Beasley

Fresh

The slim honey-eyed, corduroy-clad gentleman just ahead of me in line is brown, gray, dapper, digni ed.

What?

Is that backward lingering look for me, in my errand-chic blue jeans, rumpled tee?

Yes, it is. Unmistakable. A low, slow second glance over the shoulder, interested, admiring, inquiring.

I am uneasy.

Look at that, he says. Bagful of oranges, perfect green apples, radishes—wish I could eat like that.

You should, I dare, holding his gaze.

Nah, he says, shaking his head. Cost too high for me.

Rekha Mehra has lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1986 with an interlude of ve years when she worked for the Ford Foundation in Delhi, India. She came to DC in 1984 to work as an economist in international development focused on issues related to the advancement of low-income women. Rekha has written poems for many years and been published in the literary magazine Oberon. Her writing has benefited from classes taken at Politics and Prose and The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She is currently working on a collection of poems “Refuge” that reflect life on the Hill—its rich and evolving cultural mix, politics, and nature along the Anacostia and war. Through Rachel’s eyes we see Shanghai, at once strange, bustling, and harboring abject poverty and exorbitant wealth side-by-side. We also see the losses of war and the ways the war marks families and communities.

Exhaustively researched—Tropp includes historical photos of Shanghai and draws from interviews she conducted, historical research, and world news—the book will occupy a well-earned place alongside other family stories of WWII and the holocaust. Teachers will also be interested in the resources, activities, and writing prompts developed by the author to engage students in classroom settings. www.adriennetropp.com

LeDroit Park: Small in Size, Large in History

In Small in Size: LeDroit Park: A History & a Guide, Canden Schwantes’ (now Arciniega) ability as a storyteller, honed through years of leading historical tours, lends an engaging stylistic to this new history of what was once the premier neighborhood for DC’s Black elite. Famed for its narrow treelined streets, and Victorian mansions, LeDroit Park began as a gated community for whites-only. Over the past century, it has been home to luminaries, thinkers, and leaders, both black and white. The volume shares the re-development of the neighborhood from gated and exclusive to the neighborhood that housed Black notables, such as Duke Ellington, poet and writer Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and civil right leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and many others. Schwantes is the author of three other DC histories, including Wicked Georgetown (2013), Georgetown (2014) and Wild Women of Washington DC (2014).

What are We Reading this Month?

East City Bookshop reports that their top five sales of the new year have been 1) The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama; 2) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel, Gabrielle Zevin; 3) Demon Copperhead: A Novel, Barbara Kingsolver; 4) Spare, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex; 4) Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus.

Solid State reports their top ve sales as: 1) Spare, Prince Harry, The Dule of Sussex; 2) Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow: A Novel, Gabrielle Zevin; 3) Littlest Yak, Lu Fraser, Author and Kate Hindley, Illustrator; 4) Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, and 5) Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner.

Michelle LaFrance is Associate Professor of English at George Mason University. She teaches writing workshops via the Hill Center and other regional community centers. In her free time, she can be found reading, writing, and hiking the region’s forests with two mischievous four-leggeds. ◆