"A powerful meditation on grief and the radiating effects of violence against women. "Because it is easier to miss a stranger / with your mother's name," Allison Benis White instead writes about five women named Wendy as a way into the complex grief that still lingers after the death of a sixth Wendy, the author's long-absent mother. A series of epistolary poems addressed to Wendy O. Williams becomes an occasion for the speaker to eulogize as well as reflect on the singer's life and eventual suicide: "What kind of love is ...
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"A powerful meditation on grief and the radiating effects of violence against women. "Because it is easier to miss a stranger / with your mother's name," Allison Benis White instead writes about five women named Wendy as a way into the complex grief that still lingers after the death of a sixth Wendy, the author's long-absent mother. A series of epistolary poems addressed to Wendy O. Williams becomes an occasion for the speaker to eulogize as well as reflect on the singer's life and eventual suicide: "What kind of love is death, I'm asking?" In the section devoted to Wendy Torrance, the fictional wife from The Shining who was bludgeoned to death by her husband, the speaker muses on the inadequacy of language to resolve or even contain grief in the wake of trauma: "A book is a coffin. Hoarsely. A white sheet draped over the cage of screaming." Ultimately, The Wendys is a book of silences and space in which tenderness and violence exist in exquisite tension. "If to speak is to die," Benis White writes in "Ignis Fatuus," "I will whisper.""--
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Seller's Description:
New. Size: 6x0x9; First Edition, First Printing. In stock and ready to ship. Gift-quality. Ships with tracking the same or next business day from New Haven, CT. We fully guarantee to ship the exact same item as listed and work hard to maintain our excellent customer service.
