University of Wisconsin Press, 2015 Paper: 978-0-299-30424-9 | eISBN: 978-0-299-30423-2 Library of Congress Classification PS3619.T6397A6 2015 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Hive is a remarkable debut collection of poems about brutality, exaltation, rebellion, and allegiance. Written in the voice of a teenage Mormon girl, these poems chronicle an inheritance of daily violence and closely guarded secrets. A conflicting cast of recurring characters—best friends, sisters, serial killers, and the ominous Elders—move through these poems as the speaker begins to struggle with the widening gulf between her impulse toward faith and her growing doubts about the people who claim to know God’s will. Ultimately she must confront what it means to believe and what it costs to save ourselves.
Winner, Poetry, Association for Mormon Letters Awards
Finalist, da Vinci Eye Book Design Award
Finalist, Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Washington Center for the Book
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Christina Stoddard grew up in Tacoma, Washington, as a member of the Mormon church. She earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she was the Fred Chappell Fellow. She is currently the managing editor of an economics journal at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
I
Bodies of Two Girls Found in Woods
Party Where Maureen Pierced Everyone’s Ears
This Time the Marina
The Oxford Unabridged
At Little George’s House, the Christmas Lights
Stayed Up All Year
I Am Thinking of Salmon
Hive
The Profession of the Whale
Jacks
Abby’s Mother Shows Us Where Ted Bundy
Signed Her Yearbook
Maureen
I Ask My Father If the Green River Killer’s Victims
Go to Heaven
II
Fifteen Girls
Help Thou Mine Unbelief
Appetite
Tuesdays at Young Women’s Activity Night
Goldfish
The Man Who Built My Basement Bedroom
Grandmother Educates Her Darlings
Westward On the Dance Floor a Chaperone
Ownership
How to Make Up for Unhealthy Habits
Korihor the Anti-Christ
Excommunication
III
Our Mother Who Art in Heaven
What Tacoma Was
Raped Girl’s Mad Song
High School Yearbook
I Must Return to the Company of Saints
Some Ungodly Hour
Let It Come to Pass
Thistle
The Origin of the Ampersand
Judges Chapter 4
God Made Everything Out of Nothing, But the Nothingness Shows Through
Antigone Inverse
When My Mother Asks Me to Write Something
Nice, I Can’t
What It Is to Sin
What If God Had Said It Differently
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Wisconsin Press, 2015 Paper: 978-0-299-30424-9 eISBN: 978-0-299-30423-2
Hive is a remarkable debut collection of poems about brutality, exaltation, rebellion, and allegiance. Written in the voice of a teenage Mormon girl, these poems chronicle an inheritance of daily violence and closely guarded secrets. A conflicting cast of recurring characters—best friends, sisters, serial killers, and the ominous Elders—move through these poems as the speaker begins to struggle with the widening gulf between her impulse toward faith and her growing doubts about the people who claim to know God’s will. Ultimately she must confront what it means to believe and what it costs to save ourselves.
Winner, Poetry, Association for Mormon Letters Awards
Finalist, da Vinci Eye Book Design Award
Finalist, Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Washington Center for the Book
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Christina Stoddard grew up in Tacoma, Washington, as a member of the Mormon church. She earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she was the Fred Chappell Fellow. She is currently the managing editor of an economics journal at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
I
Bodies of Two Girls Found in Woods
Party Where Maureen Pierced Everyone’s Ears
This Time the Marina
The Oxford Unabridged
At Little George’s House, the Christmas Lights
Stayed Up All Year
I Am Thinking of Salmon
Hive
The Profession of the Whale
Jacks
Abby’s Mother Shows Us Where Ted Bundy
Signed Her Yearbook
Maureen
I Ask My Father If the Green River Killer’s Victims
Go to Heaven
II
Fifteen Girls
Help Thou Mine Unbelief
Appetite
Tuesdays at Young Women’s Activity Night
Goldfish
The Man Who Built My Basement Bedroom
Grandmother Educates Her Darlings
Westward On the Dance Floor a Chaperone
Ownership
How to Make Up for Unhealthy Habits
Korihor the Anti-Christ
Excommunication
III
Our Mother Who Art in Heaven
What Tacoma Was
Raped Girl’s Mad Song
High School Yearbook
I Must Return to the Company of Saints
Some Ungodly Hour
Let It Come to Pass
Thistle
The Origin of the Ampersand
Judges Chapter 4
God Made Everything Out of Nothing, But the Nothingness Shows Through
Antigone Inverse
When My Mother Asks Me to Write Something
Nice, I Can’t
What It Is to Sin
What If God Had Said It Differently
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE