The Blue Hour

by Jennifer Whitaker

University of Wisconsin Press, 2016
Paper: 978-0-299-30864-3
Library of Congress Classification PS3623.H5626A6 2016
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Fairy tales both familiar and obscure create a threshold, and the The Blue Hour pulls us over it. With precise language and rich detail, these poems unflinchingly create an eerie world marked by abuse, asking readers not just to bear witness but to try to understand how we make meaning in the face of the meaningless violence.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer Whitaker is the director of the University Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and assistant poetry editor for storySouth. This is her first book.

REVIEWS

“The Blue Hour casts a blue spell, using the tropes and gestures of traditional fairy tales—riddles, disguises, wishes, shape-shifting, entrapment, escape, and transformation—to trace a daughter’s experience of incestuous abuse. With language as sonically and somatically intricate as the subject she narrates, Whitaker looks unflinchingly at an ancient taboo and the infinite hour of its endurance.”—Lisa Russ Spaar, author of Vanitas, Rough

“Whitaker’s skills with sentence and sound, with spare yet suggestive language, with telling juxtapositions, with metaphor and misdirection, make the unbearable bearable just long enough that it can be seen, contained, and transcended. These are riveting poems, hard won, from a poet of exceptional talent.”—Jim Peterson, author of Original Face

“Like a banked fire stoked into a blaze, The Blue Hour contains the power to warm you up and burn you down. I am enthralled by the stunning grace of Jennifer Whitaker’s vision. A spectacular debut.”—Camille T. Dungy, author of Smith Blue

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Last Poem about My Father

I.
The Invention of Childhood
Something He’d Do
The Look of It
Father as Barred Owl
Strange Sister
Story That Begins and Ends with Burning
Through the Vines
Habit
The Invitation
The Lesson
The Birth Premature
Mother as Blossoming Vine
False Season
In the Sick Room
Father as Map of the World
Father as Ribbon in My Hair
Rumpelstiltskin
The Gown
Story in Which the Daughter Waits for the Hunter to Return
Daughter as Collection of Words
Mount Vernon
Story That Begins with a Bat Falling Dead
Blue Hour

II.
Snow White as Apology from My Youth
Daughter as Painted Boy
Collusion
Cinderella as Wish That Comes True
Daughter as Sister in Many Layers
Story in Which the Daughter Briefly Encounters Providence
Rapunzel
Mother’s Foxes
Throat-Song
Story in Which We Scream at the Daughter to Stop
Aubade
Daughter as Pallid Bat in the Attic
Daughter as Pig in the House
Letter to My Father as Severed Goat Head
Letter to My Father as Month of August
What to Wear to a Father’s Funeral
Letter to My Father as Robin in the Field
Home
Fairgrounds
Father as Distant Boat
Father as Suit of Armor
In the Marriage Season
Letter to My Father as Theropod Exhibit
Letter to My Father in the Blue Hour
Notes

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