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“A tender, insightful reflection on everyday wonders of life with grandchildren.” —Kirkus Review

Ice Cream for Lunch: A Grandparents Handbook

by Laura Foley

Editor’s Choice, The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2024

This sage grandparent’s tale begins atypically, with the birth of a special needs first grandchild, with learning to set aside anxiety, accept what is and practice gratitude, “learning to love/in sun and shade,/and finding grace.” The poems make delicious meals of the joys of grandparenting, the sweetness and humor as well as the wisdom gained, the ways grandparents can learn to relax and enjoy each moment, “singing/Let It Go, Let It Go,” with grandchildren, “knowing/both joy and sorrow are holy.”

Early Praise:

Reading Ice Cream for Lunch: A Grandparents Handbook transported me to a place of calm, a place of serenity, a place of awe. For the better part of a morning (for as soon as I finished the book, I read it again) I forgot about our troubled and troubling world and instead, remembered what a holy gift it is to spend time with those we love, especially children. Young Evelyn sees the best in everyone, teaches us to listen to the chairs, tells us when a beloved dog dies, Alys has just gone home—her old one and proclaims Grandma, you’re beautiful. Without being cloying, Laura Foley uses just the right details to capture a grandmother’s love of her three unique and remarkable grandchildren. I was absolutely charmed by this book.

—Lesléa Newman, author of I Carry My Mother and I Wish My Father

Laura Foley once again, and in the unwavering clarity we have come to expect from her poetry, teaches us how to navigate life—but this time, in the companionship of Evelyn, Eleanor and Milo. At once funny, tender, wise and generous, Foley translates the worlds of her grandchildren, inviting us to recognize Santa in the garbage truck driver, the Queen in the white-haired lady on the park bench, even the magnificence of our own aging bodies… The most important thing I learn from my granddaughter, Foley writes, is I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!

—Brooke Herter James, winner of the Fish Poetry Prize

In Ice Cream for Lunch: A Grandparents Handbook—a cornucopia of tenderness and delight in gentle, quiet poems—Laura Foley manages to convey the delicious sweetness and poignancy of grandparenthood without ever surrendering to the temptation to be maudlin or cloying. She knows both joy and sorrow are holy, expressing a deep reverence for the lives and lived experience of her young grandchildren in direct, spare language; she is always steeped in the wonder I don’t let go. Finally, she offers the reader the freedom to loose the ribbons of ourselves to the spirit of the wind. Those who have grandchildren will resonate with the newness, the pleasure, and the ache inherent in that relationship; those who do not will wish they did.

—James K. Zimmerman, author of The Further Adventures of Zen Patriarch Dōgen

There’s nothing sticky-sweet in this spirited collection of poems exploring one grandmother’s relationship with her grandchildren as they dance and sing, climb hills, feast on mussels, or simply sit together side by side, with eyes closed, instructing each other. Willing to follow wherever the joyous curiosity and imagination of the child may lead, the poet also acknowledges the inner feelings of sadness and longing that well up at times beneath the surface— yet finds her way back to the present moment, knowing both joy and sorrow are holy.

          The many adventures of this lively bunch will wake in the reader a palpable joy, while the haunting poem “Sacred Space” embodies an overarching sense of comfort and safety in the close love and light of family.  This book is a gem—completely whole from start to finish in its wisdom, its humor, and the gift of openness—every word an embrace of the world as it is.

—Clyde Watson, author of Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes

About the Author

Laura Foley is the author of ten previous poetry books, most recently, Sledding the Valley of the Shadow. Her book Why I Never Finished My Dissertation received a starred Kirkus Review and an Eric Hoffer Award. She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been included in many journals including: Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso, Poetry Society London, Atlanta Review, Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. She lives on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire, and romps with the grandchildren as often as possible.

Learn more at lauradaviesfoley.com