Books | Rachel R. Baum

How to Rob a Convenience Store is a collection of original poems written to change perspectives on guns and the effects of gun violence. Copies of this chapbook can be obtained from Bookshop.org, Amazon and Cowboy Jamboree Press.

Proceeds from the sale of How to Rob a Convenience Store will be donated to The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Thank you for buying, reading and sharing this book.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

How to Rob a Convenience Store

With ever-rising figures of deaths caused by gun violence, it is appalling that our society accepts their ownership as the norm with Americans purchasing nearly 1.4 million firearms per month in 2024, according to a study. The disquiet that accompanies us after finishing the collection remains as numbing as the silence that follows the explosive noise of a gunshot due to Baum’s powerful exposition and well-thought-through narrative.

SUNDRESS READS! REVIEW BY INES PINTO

In Rachel Baum's powerful collection of poems, How to Rob A Convenience Store, the last line of one poem often bleeds into the first line of the next one. This metaphor of concatenation literalizes the many ways in which we are interconnected through the histories of gun violence. One incident bleeds into the next, one death bleeds into another. 'Concentrate,' Baum writes in a poem, 'because no one can stop the future.' Baum is no doubt correct. But, if we can't stop the future, perhaps we can change it. In these raw, angry, hopeful poems, Baum begins to show us the way.

DEAN RADAR, BULLETS INTO BELLS: POETS & CITIZENS RESPOND TO GUN VIOLENCE

Subways, Fourth of July parades, synagogues, malls, schools—no place is safe. The stunning poems of Rachel R. Baum take us back to these familiar human landscapes now painted with the gun violence that has become part of daily life in America. Her poems show us the price we pay for the gun that has permeated American culture, the gun that is glorified by some, wreaks havoc for others, and of course kills and maims. She recognizes the “ghosts left lingering” for so many who have been affected by a gun, and our collective need to “look up to search the sky for a glimpse of sunlight,” and still, these poems do not look away. They consider the perspective of the victims, perpetrators, and especially those left behind to pick up their lives in the aftermath, those with no other choice but to go on in a world with “the thunder of guns in the distance.” These are important, bold and haunting poems. Read them and be changed.

TARA BRAY, MISTAKEN FOR SONG

Rachel R. Baum’s How to Rob a Convenience Store opens with a Malala Yousafzai quote: 'I believe the gun has no power at all'—meant, of course, as an empowering rebuke of the gun violence that was directed against her. But in poems linked together not only by last lines repeated, crown-sonnet style, as the first line of the following poem but also by their anti-gun-violence theme, Baum shows us the devastating after effects, the causes and, yes, the power of our nation’s pervasive gun culture. A rodeo winner by day who becomes a domestic abuser by night…the lament of a parent whose teen committed suicide with a gun…the outcast kid who was about to change the order of things at school…the child who discovers a gun in his parents’ bedroom and become a super hero…a mother running from gun fire with her children…a failed shoe salesman who packs two suitcases of guns, hunting for dignity—the scenes are all too familiar, all too American, all too preventable. 'I write poems about guns to try and make some sense where there is none' Baum writes in her preface. Welcome to America.

B. FULTON JENNES, BLINDED BIRDS

Rachel R. Baum’s chapbook, secrets she has saved, unwraps her maternal and filial relationships—as granddaughter, daughter, and mother—in poems evoking quotidian images and sounds that otherwise would mask these etched and slipping-away yearnings. With the poet, I found myself reaching to forgive.

RHONDA ROSENHECK

In this quietly devastating short collection, Rachel Baum manages to convey an entire family in all its anguished ambivalence. Tolstoy may be right about

happy families, but I recognize this unhappy family as if it were my own. Wry and occasionally funny, the poems skewer not only the speaker’s parents but herself and gesture toward the generations before and after, delineating how family dysfunction replicates itself. Baum covers an impressive amount

of ground in these fourteen short, readable poems, as if she’d compressed an entire novel into a slim chapbook. The imagery is sharp and surprising; the voice both jaded and sensitive, belying the speaker’s tough stance. There is hard-gained wisdom by the end, and a kind of heartbreaking sadness hroughout that reveals itself, finally, as love.

BARBARA UNGAR

Rachel Baum’s secrets she has saved depicts a Jewish family over time and especially the connections and failed connections between mother and daughter. In these poignant poems, which take a variety of forms and are linked by repeated words and haunted by silences, Baum is intent on a kind of truth-telling about family life. Nor does she spare herself from judgment as she shows us the pain of a family with inherited trauma that is not spoken and therefore cannot be healed.

SUSAN KRESS

Richard Brautigan's Concussion (Bottlecap Press, 2024)

Words can fail even the most articulate when called upon to speak at a loved one’s funeral or memorial occasion. The bereaved desires to say something meaningful, yet services are often held so quickly that there is little time to find something appropriate at the library or bookstore. This book is a collection of poetry and prose appropriate for reading at a funeral or memorial service. To assist the reader in finding a suitable passage, the book is divided into eleven chapters. There are tributes for mothers; fathers; children; spouses and soulmates; friends; siblings and other close relatives; soldiers and victims of war or violence; pets; and general readings appropriate for men, women, or any loved one. These selections will also prove helpful for clergy, counselors, and hospice, hospital, and funeral professionals. Appendices list resources and support organizations, and each selection is indexed by author, title, and first line. A special additional index references pieces by famous uses, such as in a film, novel, or celebrity’s funeral, so readers can locate a passage they remember from its context.

Best Nonfiction/Handbook—TODAY'S LIBRARIAN

“A collection of poetry and prose appropriate for reading at a funeral or memorial service. Recommended”

PUBLIC LIBRARY QUARTERLY

“Baum’s effort simplifies the task of finding appropriate poems and readings during an unusually stressful time and should be welcomed in any library"

COLORADO LIBRARIES

“Gathers poetry and some prose from a wide variety of sources…. [The competition’s] material is not presented with the same ease and convenience as in this volume…unique…very readable…nonsectarian and can be used in a variety of circumstances…a helpful addition”

REFERENCE & USER SERVICES QUARTERLY

“The readings are well-chosen and well-presented. I enjoyed browsing this book and found many new poems, or extracts from poems, to treasure”

REFERENCE REVIEWS

“[A] handy and often illuminating anthology”

BEREAVEMENT CARE

“A good resource for anyone seeking guidance and help"

FAITH AND THOUGHT

“A tremendous resource…offers incredibly helpful supporting materials…. Libraries should plan to purchase reference and circulating copies of this manual”

TODAY'S LIBRARIAN