Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping by Bruce E. Whitacre, Poets Wear Prada, $18.00.
“The dog asleep under the table is the soul’s repose.”
Whether you enjoy them or not, chores and errands are a part of life. Most of these tasks are completed with the purpose of maintaining some kind of home. However, home is such an important place that we rarely think about it. This is the place where we eat, sleep, raise our kids, store our most cherished belongings, practice our religion, and more. Thus, it is a place that must be maintained. But because we are so often in our home, it is difficult to consider its broader meanings and implications. In his new chapbook Good Housekeeping, Bruce E. Whitacre offers a space in which to meditate on the various visions of home.
Whitacre announces his intentions in the first line of the book. “I sing the body domestic” he proclaims in a clever reference to Whitman. Like Whitman, he sets out to celebrate all of life, including its most mundane tasks. In “Loading the Dishwasher” Whitacre is grateful for “the only door that opens/ to you or that closes on your mess.” Later in the poem he fantasizes about all the things he would like to stuff inside the dishwasher so that he can avoid them. In “Sorted” the organization of the household becomes an avenue through which to explore the hierarchical nature of human society.
The home is not just a place for work, it is also a place for intimacy. In one of the most moving lines of the book, Whitacre writes, “come pillow against me and let’s savor a Netflix.” Whitacre often writes of love and some of the poems are quite erotic, “I love sliding under your chassis to see how you’re made/ your grime anoints my lips with its radiance.” However, intimacy is more than just love and sex. In Good Housekeeping, Whitacre writes honestly about the difficulties of marriage, and about the relationships between old friends and new neighbors.
Scattered throughout the book, the reader will find various haiku. These are excellent and a great addition to the collection as a whole. “Rain drumming the roof/ snare stuck in farewell tempo/ a year in retreat.” Each time I came upon a haiku, it felt like the poet was providing an opportunity for me to pause briefly and take a deep breath of domesticity. This allowed me to grow even more comfortable with the chapbook and at times to even (please forgive the pun) feel at home there.
Also sprinkled here and there in the pages of Good Housekeeping are tiny bits of wisdom. In “Just Be” Whitacre writes, “home is wherever I sit/ whomever I sit with.” This is a necessary reminder that we can create home anywhere, regardless of our situation. And towards the end of the book we find the line, “even foaming volcanoes promise wider beaches” encouraging us to remain optimistic even amidst tragedy. In Good Housekeeping, Whitacre is a poet filled with joy at the simple pleasures of life. He is excited to share the blessings of domesticity with his readers and he made this reviewer grateful for my own home as well.
Benjamin Schmitt
Benjamin Schmitt is the author of four books, most recently The Saints of Capitalism and Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The Good Men Project, Hobart, Columbia Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and children.