[ Illinois poet Elaine Fowler Palencia reveals one of the great
secrets of evangelical capitalism, duping the consumer. ]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

CAPITALISM   [[link removed]]

 

Elaine Fowler Palencia
August 18, 2021
Rattle [[link removed]]

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_ Illinois poet Elaine Fowler Palencia reveals one of the great
secrets of evangelical capitalism, duping the consumer. _

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Capitalism

By Elaine Fowler Palencia

Along the two-lane blacktops

of my childhood we stopped

to buy watermelons.

Mother thumped them,

listening for that deep, ripe sound.

If she hesitated, the farmer

would take out his clasp knife,

cut a square plug for tasting,

offer it on the point of his knife.

She always bought the melon

he’d spoiled for us.

Later, a high school friend

who sold Bibles door-to-door

for spending money, said

he was sent out with these instructions:

“Don’t show them an unwrapped Bible.

Hold up one wrapped in cellophane

and then rip that off.

It obligates them to buy.

They feel like they have no choice.

This works especially well

with the poor.”

Elaine Fowler Palencia, Champaign IL, grew up in eastern Kentucky. She
is the author of four poetry chapbooks. The most recent is _How to
Prepare Escargots_ (Main Street Rag Press), a collection about writers
and writing. She also has published six books of fiction, including
two Appalachian short story collections, and a nonfiction work, _On
Rising Ground_ (Mercer University Press), constructed around thirty
letters from her great-great grandfather’s Civil War service. Her
work has received seven Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the
longtime moderator of the Red Herring Fiction Workshop and a member of
the Champaign County Mental Health Board.

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