What do you think?
Rate this book
If the House
In these poems, well-known spaces both reassure and imperil, and language both anchors and disorients. Molly Spencer's speakers navigate the landscape of human experience, building upon the cycles of a household throughout the seasons of the year. Ordinary places and things—a kitchen table, a memory, a beloved's thigh—are viewed as if through the lens of a shifting, unsettling kaleidoscope. This incisive collection suggests that the imagined comfort we find in familiarity and routine belies the unease that lingers beneath.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2019
2 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 26, 2020
I loved this clear-eyed, unsentimental, but still very warm poetry. The verses embrace, interrogate, and reimagine domestic spaces with precision, like a kind-hearted surgeon—sharp, smart, but never without a base level of compassion and openness. I also loved the Michigan landscapes. Of course it helps that i'm familiar with Michigan landscapes, but what I especially loved was their strong sense of place, and trying to maintain a commitment to inhabiting, preserving, or establishing place. Wonderful poems to return to.
November 22, 2019
Wow! Layered, textured, rich and deep. This debut collection is stunning.
February 4, 2022
Everything feels right in this collection. I love its depth, its specific sensibilities which are so perceptively and musically drawn.
July 19, 2022
The first phrase that came to my mind as I tried to crystalize my thoughts about this moving book was "dark domesticity." But I just hate it when men write about women's poetry and use some version of "domestic" in their descriptions. But Carl Phillips used it in his blurb, and the author and her publisher must have thought it appropriate, so I guess I can use it.
As the title indicates, the poems are about "the house," but those words are put in a conditional clause! It makes the house tentative, fragile, uncertain. And that is felt in many of the poems; indeed, in most. One of my favorite poems, "Disclosure / If you are aware of any settling," begins:
After a while a wooded lot
means someday you will pay
to have the trees cut down.
The water spout on the door of the fridge
is just one more thing
that will break. These windows
are original, meaning
warped and in need
of repair.
So maybe Spencer and her children can find refuge in the house, but her readers can never be certain. A later poem starts with a woman in a meadow, perhaps, a place she knows well, but ends:
. . . . She is still
As one who knows she's native here.
Quiet as on who knows she's prey.
And that rich, and even frightening reality lifts these poems out of the ordinary. It seems to be the space Molly Spencer is working in, at least in this book. It is not an easy book to forget.
As the title indicates, the poems are about "the house," but those words are put in a conditional clause! It makes the house tentative, fragile, uncertain. And that is felt in many of the poems; indeed, in most. One of my favorite poems, "Disclosure / If you are aware of any settling," begins:
After a while a wooded lot
means someday you will pay
to have the trees cut down.
The water spout on the door of the fridge
is just one more thing
that will break. These windows
are original, meaning
warped and in need
of repair.
So maybe Spencer and her children can find refuge in the house, but her readers can never be certain. A later poem starts with a woman in a meadow, perhaps, a place she knows well, but ends:
. . . . She is still
As one who knows she's native here.
Quiet as on who knows she's prey.
And that rich, and even frightening reality lifts these poems out of the ordinary. It seems to be the space Molly Spencer is working in, at least in this book. It is not an easy book to forget.
November 11, 2020
IF A HOUSE...a lyrical and emotive collection of poetry about the most basic structures of creation and recreation.
Well-known spaces of homes are examined with lush and precise prose in IF A HOUSE by Molly Spencer (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), and being a 'house person,' I found myself completely absorbed. Here, we navigate the experiences of land and home, person and family, the cycles of nature, as well as ordinary and extravagant things--a kitchen table, a memory, the sky. It's complex, it's metaphorical, it's all things good poetry should be. And like all good poetry, it is best savored and read aloud, and revisited--like an old homestead--often.
I was reminded of the work of John James (THE MILK HOURS) as well as Laurie Patton's HOUSE CROSSING. In fiction, I found myself wanting to revisit Meredith Hall's BENEFICIENCE again and thought these two works would nicely complement.
For all my reviews, including author interviews, please visit: www.leslielindsay.com|Always with a Book
Special thanks to the author for these review copies. All thoughts are my own.
Well-known spaces of homes are examined with lush and precise prose in IF A HOUSE by Molly Spencer (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), and being a 'house person,' I found myself completely absorbed. Here, we navigate the experiences of land and home, person and family, the cycles of nature, as well as ordinary and extravagant things--a kitchen table, a memory, the sky. It's complex, it's metaphorical, it's all things good poetry should be. And like all good poetry, it is best savored and read aloud, and revisited--like an old homestead--often.
I was reminded of the work of John James (THE MILK HOURS) as well as Laurie Patton's HOUSE CROSSING. In fiction, I found myself wanting to revisit Meredith Hall's BENEFICIENCE again and thought these two works would nicely complement.
For all my reviews, including author interviews, please visit: www.leslielindsay.com|Always with a Book
Special thanks to the author for these review copies. All thoughts are my own.
September 16, 2021
My first read of these poems is that they describe the unsettling feeling that just precedes a moment of great transition. There is a feeling of incipience, of winter cold, where spring may, yes, bring new life but also reveals what was hidden under the snow. “Snow” is a word often repeated, as well as: storm, winter, blade, bird, crow, water, lake, river, boat, bridge, gray, stone, scrape, love. There is a sense of death, perhaps a death necessary to make room for renewal, but death nonetheless. A love that has become as skeletal as winter trees, about which I sense a tenderness, a wistfulness, but also a rage. What breathtaking poems these are.
May 17, 2020
This is quite simply one of the best books I've read in a while. Spencer explores family, love, motherhood, and home through achingly lonely and lyrically gorgeous poems. Her vibrant imagery and interesting syntax create both tension and release, while her emphasis on place tethers each poem to the earth. What happens when one has to create and recreate the idea of home? How can one feel at home in a world that is alienating in multiple ways: personally, environmentally, and politically? These are the kinds of big questions Spencer engages with. This is a beautiful book and a masterful debut.
February 14, 2021
The language that Molly Spencer uses is deliberate and perfect, yet not the words I would have known to choose. Lovely in its longing, pain, and even in its mundane details, her work lures the reader in every time. IF THE HOUSE is a beautiful collection.
July 15, 2020
A truly gorgeous collection!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews