Sunday Houses the Sunday House

By Elizabeth Hughey

Iowa Poetry Prize

70 pages, 6 x 8 inches, 2007
16.00 paper, 1-58729-528-8, 978-1-58729-528-7

"Elizabeth Hughey's poems leap forward, backward, and sideways, always giving us a fresh perspective. The poems are made of the daily objects of our lives, but thrown into a kaleidoscope so what we are left with is a vital vision of the world. The kinetic energy of each of her poems at first dazzles, then resolves in clarity. I love these poems."—James Tate, author, Worshipful Company of Fletchers and The Lost Pilot

"Intense domesticity rivals fugitive invention in bands of a parallel universe Liz Hughey documents, discovers, and delivers. It's a reading experience that's surprising, sure footed, and affecting. You feel you're being let in on secrets you'll need to recall for the rest of your life. Her craft is subtle; her logic unflinchingly original; her language energetic, acute, and agile. "—Dara Wier, author, Remnants of Hannah

In Sunday Houses the Sunday House, Elizabeth Hughey embraces the possibility that we can learn as much from objects as we can from other people, from the inanimate as much as the animate. Each poem descends upon a place and a time, takes a few notes, and then leaves quietly without slamming any doors. Sunday Houses the Sunday House reveals what the world is like when your attention is focused elsewhere, when your head is turned the other way.

In ineffably beautiful verse, Hughey captures moments in time and place with confidence but without being judgmental. Although it may seem that the scope of these poems is rather small—a good party, a couple of eggs, a housekeeper's daydream—they reveal both a deep intelligence and a spirit of whimsy. Gertrude Stein wrote that she wanted to be "drunk with nouns," and in a sense that is what Hughey has accomplished here.

A native of Alabama, Elizabeth Hughey attended Hollins College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she received her MFA. Her poems have appeared in Shampoo, the Hat, and the Southern Poetry Review and are forthcoming in La Petite Zine. She lives and teaches in western Massachusetts. 

Sunday Houses the Sunday House

Who spent the night for church the next day.
Stay Fredericksburg. Every room opens
To Kathy. The heart from homestead.
The map to go too far. Says Sunday house.
Says womanly opposite. Says glass armchair.
I’d like to cover the whole thing with rhinestone.
The guest downstairs, unframed, whose
Background is reflected in the silver.
Make the bed as Victorian as a stack of soap.
Brick house adding fragrance to the mint.

Poetry