Murray author Constance Alexander holds a reading this Sunday at 2 p.m. at Calloway County Public Library, titled "Old, New, Borrowed & Blue" featuring a variety of work, including new material on her recent project with the elderly and caregiving and her book of poetry "64 Blue Letters," about a high school yearbook in the year 1964. Alexander stops by Sounds Good to preview some of her work ahead of the reading.
"Old, New, Borrowed & Blue" features pieces from Constance Alexander's newspaper columns and other published works. She'll be reading selections from "From Cradle to Grace" a recent project she's done on the elderly and caregiving. Borrowing some short pieces from Chuck Simon and Bobby Bryan from the work "Kilroy Was Here," she'll be reading from a series of oral history interviews of people who were children during WWII. Also in the reading will be material from the book of poetry, "64 Blue Letters."
The book of poetry interprets an old-style yearbook, Alexander says, where the beginning had a photo of the school, followed by the senior class listed in alphabetical style (sometimes with information about them underneath their names). High school is the one time of your life when you're with all peers, she says, and the intimacy you have with high school friends is different than when you go to college and beyond that. Some people hated high school, but she finds that in reflection - people seldom spoke the truth at that age, often trying to be someone else. She says some of the stereotypical characters in high school are still the same today.