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Tender Hooks: Poems
A fearless delineation of the joys, absorptions, and―yes―jealousies of new motherhood. Beth Ann Fennelly is fearless in delineating the joys, absorptions, and―yes―jealousies of new motherhood. Having studied motherhood "as if for an exam," reality proved "wilder and deeper and funnier" than anything she'd anticipated. Tender Hooks is Fennelly's spirited exploration of parenting, with all its contradictions and complexities.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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535 people want to read
About the author
Beth Ann Fennelly
29 books206 followersBeth Ann Fennelly is the author of
Tender Hooks: Poems
and
Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother
. A professor of English at the University of Mississippi, Fennelly lives with her husband and children in Oxford, Mississippi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
February 7, 2013
Loved this book, given to me by a friend who is a mother, in part because she knows I love poetry, and also because I am a father of five, including still little ones. I came to this poet through a poem I found in a collection of baseball poetry, a poem about her, as a little girl, being taken to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field by the father she loves, who also happens to be drunk and drunkenly neglectful. She captures the painful, almost tragically sad vulnerability of herself as a girl, not quite getting the abandonment of that time, as her Dad comes back jocularly drunk with two melted ice cream cones in hand, after having left her in the stands to drink for several innings.... heart breaking. Then I read some of her work online, liked it a lot, actually contacted her about the possibility of her writing a poem for a collection of baseball poetry I was gathering...(that was out only conversation). What I liked about that poem and others was her courage to look at tough stuff with a kind of dark humor and sweetness. I liked the brash voice. So when I got this book I looked forward to reading it, but was unprepared for the baring of her soul and body in the way of Plath and Sharon Olds, that refusal to look away when looking at and back is so required. Her main subject is motherhood, the birth of her child, and its graphic and searingly honest. What pregnancy and birth do to the body, to identity, to all relationships.... and then there is a section on miscarriage, hard, and we get inside her bedroom for that. We get inside her bedroom for sex after such situations, too; we learn what these things feel like; there is often besides the Olds and Plath-like honesty something you also find in them, a dark sense of humor about everything: her body, her rich, loud emotional life... even about some jealousy about her daughter choosing Daddy... I have been reading Olds and it feels like they are in conversation with each other... though she only mentions Plath and Bishop in her text as women poets who are influences... I am reading everything she has written now. Can't look away; don't want to.
June 24, 2007
I was drawn to Beth Ann Fennelly's poetry after first reading "Telling the Gospel Truth" in The Kenyon Review:
I want to womanize
the Bible, rend it, render it homey,
homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste.
Let us start with the stable.
Let it be a real stable, and let Mary be angry
at the filth of it, at dust sifting from the rafters.
Let her grow resigned as cracks of light are grouted by night,
let her grow out of mind
as the invisible fist grabs guts
and twists,
then twists harder,
This poem was a slap that woke me up and got my attention. With its long exploration of birth, the Bible, loss, and motherhood, it expanded my ideas of what a poem can be and can do.
"Tender Hooks," which includes this poem, takes the themes of motherhood and faith, loss and hope, and crawls deep under the skin with them. At times, the honesty, depth, and extent of Fennelly's emotions over the loss of her first child takes me out of my comfort zone. This is a good thing. This book contains poems that challenge me to face unspoken fears, but it also contains moments that cherish infancy, that celebrate the mother-child bond, and that revel in the strange fascination all parents feel with their children.
In the end, this is a book that resonates with me because I'm the mother of two young daughters and also because it is poetry that illuminates and reveals in unexpected ways.
I want to womanize
the Bible, rend it, render it homey,
homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste.
Let us start with the stable.
Let it be a real stable, and let Mary be angry
at the filth of it, at dust sifting from the rafters.
Let her grow resigned as cracks of light are grouted by night,
let her grow out of mind
as the invisible fist grabs guts
and twists,
then twists harder,
This poem was a slap that woke me up and got my attention. With its long exploration of birth, the Bible, loss, and motherhood, it expanded my ideas of what a poem can be and can do.
"Tender Hooks," which includes this poem, takes the themes of motherhood and faith, loss and hope, and crawls deep under the skin with them. At times, the honesty, depth, and extent of Fennelly's emotions over the loss of her first child takes me out of my comfort zone. This is a good thing. This book contains poems that challenge me to face unspoken fears, but it also contains moments that cherish infancy, that celebrate the mother-child bond, and that revel in the strange fascination all parents feel with their children.
In the end, this is a book that resonates with me because I'm the mother of two young daughters and also because it is poetry that illuminates and reveals in unexpected ways.
December 31, 2019
"Telling the Gospel Truth (excerpts)
III
I want to womanize
the Bible, rend it, render it homey,
homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste.
I start with Mary, because I need her,
because I, too, am mostly mother now, appendaged
by my twenty-pound daughter
who’s intent as any dentist on fingering my incisors,
or pinching my shoulder’s beauty mark
that she hopes is a raisin --…
IV
Let us start with the stable.
Let it be a real stable, and let Mary be angry
at the filth of it, at dust sifting from the rafters.
Let her grow resigned as cracks of light are grouted by night,
let her grow out of mind
as the invisible fist grabs guts
and twists,
then twists harder…”
I have been so unfair to this book. I started it in January, and it might be the last book that I finish this year. Fennelly has written some of the most beautiful poems about being a mother and being a friend. I am so glad that I came back to it, even it took me eleven months.
I am especially grateful to the poems that speak to the child that she miscarried before her daughter, Claire, was conceived. As one of those women (about 25% of pregnancies are miscarried) who had a miscarriage, I am glad to have words written for such experiences.
I wish I could hear Fennelly speak these words. I am guessing that they would leap into my brain and lodge there in her voice. It has been almost 16 years since this book was published and I looked Fennelly up so I know she has two more children. I wonder how she sees these verses after her family has grown. Has that changed the way she sees the world?
There are poems on other subjects too. I especially enjoyed this one since we have been in this situation:
We Are The Renters
You need no other name for us than that.
The good folk of Old Taylor Road
know who you mean. We are
the renters, hoarders of bloated boxes,
foam peanuts. When the Welcome Wagon
of local dogs visits our garbage,
we're not sure which houses to yell at. So
what if we leave the cans there a bit too long.
We have white walls, a beige futon, orange
U-Haul on retainer, checks with low numbers.
Scheming to get our security deposit back, nail holes
are spackled with toothpaste. Ooops, our modifiers
dangle. Our uncoiled hoses dangle, but the weeds
in our gutters do not, they grow tall,
they are Renters' Weeds, they are unafraid.
An old black one-speed leans against the carport.
So what. Maybe we were thinking about riding
past these houses with posters for Republican governors.
We have posters too: Garage Sale. 'Can I hel—'
'No, just looking.' We are just looked at, we renters.
Are we coming soon to your neighborhood?
We're the ones without green thumbs,
with too many references, the ones
whose invitation to the block party
must have gotten lost in the mail. If we're still here
come winter, tell the postman not to bother
searching our nameless mailbox for his Christmas check.
III
I want to womanize
the Bible, rend it, render it homey,
homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste.
I start with Mary, because I need her,
because I, too, am mostly mother now, appendaged
by my twenty-pound daughter
who’s intent as any dentist on fingering my incisors,
or pinching my shoulder’s beauty mark
that she hopes is a raisin --…
IV
Let us start with the stable.
Let it be a real stable, and let Mary be angry
at the filth of it, at dust sifting from the rafters.
Let her grow resigned as cracks of light are grouted by night,
let her grow out of mind
as the invisible fist grabs guts
and twists,
then twists harder…”
I have been so unfair to this book. I started it in January, and it might be the last book that I finish this year. Fennelly has written some of the most beautiful poems about being a mother and being a friend. I am so glad that I came back to it, even it took me eleven months.
I am especially grateful to the poems that speak to the child that she miscarried before her daughter, Claire, was conceived. As one of those women (about 25% of pregnancies are miscarried) who had a miscarriage, I am glad to have words written for such experiences.
I wish I could hear Fennelly speak these words. I am guessing that they would leap into my brain and lodge there in her voice. It has been almost 16 years since this book was published and I looked Fennelly up so I know she has two more children. I wonder how she sees these verses after her family has grown. Has that changed the way she sees the world?
There are poems on other subjects too. I especially enjoyed this one since we have been in this situation:
We Are The Renters
You need no other name for us than that.
The good folk of Old Taylor Road
know who you mean. We are
the renters, hoarders of bloated boxes,
foam peanuts. When the Welcome Wagon
of local dogs visits our garbage,
we're not sure which houses to yell at. So
what if we leave the cans there a bit too long.
We have white walls, a beige futon, orange
U-Haul on retainer, checks with low numbers.
Scheming to get our security deposit back, nail holes
are spackled with toothpaste. Ooops, our modifiers
dangle. Our uncoiled hoses dangle, but the weeds
in our gutters do not, they grow tall,
they are Renters' Weeds, they are unafraid.
An old black one-speed leans against the carport.
So what. Maybe we were thinking about riding
past these houses with posters for Republican governors.
We have posters too: Garage Sale. 'Can I hel—'
'No, just looking.' We are just looked at, we renters.
Are we coming soon to your neighborhood?
We're the ones without green thumbs,
with too many references, the ones
whose invitation to the block party
must have gotten lost in the mail. If we're still here
come winter, tell the postman not to bother
searching our nameless mailbox for his Christmas check.
September 7, 2018
Food for thought, food for nostalgia, food for memories of days gone by. Quite a feast.
December 27, 2023
Oh man, this one got me in a way I absolutely didn't expect it to get me. I think that might just be Beth Ann Fennelly's writing style and absolutely bonkers way of describing things in perfect execution though. I'm in that weird phase of my life where whenever I see a baby for too long....I also want a baby? And some of these poems cultivate that exact feeling.
My favorites were On Collaboration: Downward Dog, Happy Baby, Cobra, which quite honestly undid me in a way that only women friendships filled with love and bordering on being in love, in whatever way that means, do, Telling the Gospel Truth, and The Gods Tell Me, You Will Forget All This. The bits about the birder and the poacher and giving her daughter the cherry tootsie pop both made me shiver.
*
and your father was terror and blood spatter like he too was being born and he was, we were, and finally I burst at the seams and you were out, Look, Ha, you didn't kill me after all, Monster I have you and you are mine now, mine
Child, I've loved many things, I've loved food heartily, I've doubled garlic in every recipe, I've had the perfect peach and understood
Said Cézanne: Le monde - c'est terrible!
Which means, The world - it bites the big weenie.
I'm moving to this town, you're moving to Sweden, now you lead me into Dancer pose but break from it to giggle because in my concentration I'm sticking out my tongue - now you're in my kitchen in your sexy Chinese skirt scissoring your fingers to show me where to snip pothos because cuttings start new plants, another thing I never knew -
if consanguinity means to share blood, Ann, come share blood with me in mosquito-thick Mississippi while there's still time left though our husbands have been looking at us strangely
I want to womanize the Bible, rend it, render it homey, homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste. I start with Mary, because I need her, because I , too, am mostly mother now, appendaged by my twenty-pound daughter who's intent as any dentist on fingering my incisors, or pinching my shoulder's beauty mark that she hopes is a raisin - I start with Mary, because she needs it, because her role's so flat she could never get Best Actress
I want to reclaim the optimism of the grand old religions, I want exclamations, exultations, belly laughs, shaking fists, tears for all my friends, tears on the house!
(Abraham - the one rewarded because he'd kill his child to please his God; Me - one who split her body open to please the tiny God who wanted out)
churning that pre-speech underworld where once we floated like deep sea divers holding hands in the original buddy system
My favorites were On Collaboration: Downward Dog, Happy Baby, Cobra, which quite honestly undid me in a way that only women friendships filled with love and bordering on being in love, in whatever way that means, do, Telling the Gospel Truth, and The Gods Tell Me, You Will Forget All This. The bits about the birder and the poacher and giving her daughter the cherry tootsie pop both made me shiver.
*
and your father was terror and blood spatter like he too was being born and he was, we were, and finally I burst at the seams and you were out, Look, Ha, you didn't kill me after all, Monster I have you and you are mine now, mine
Child, I've loved many things, I've loved food heartily, I've doubled garlic in every recipe, I've had the perfect peach and understood
Said Cézanne: Le monde - c'est terrible!
Which means, The world - it bites the big weenie.
I'm moving to this town, you're moving to Sweden, now you lead me into Dancer pose but break from it to giggle because in my concentration I'm sticking out my tongue - now you're in my kitchen in your sexy Chinese skirt scissoring your fingers to show me where to snip pothos because cuttings start new plants, another thing I never knew -
if consanguinity means to share blood, Ann, come share blood with me in mosquito-thick Mississippi while there's still time left though our husbands have been looking at us strangely
I want to womanize the Bible, rend it, render it homey, homemade, I lust to cut-and-paste. I start with Mary, because I need her, because I , too, am mostly mother now, appendaged by my twenty-pound daughter who's intent as any dentist on fingering my incisors, or pinching my shoulder's beauty mark that she hopes is a raisin - I start with Mary, because she needs it, because her role's so flat she could never get Best Actress
I want to reclaim the optimism of the grand old religions, I want exclamations, exultations, belly laughs, shaking fists, tears for all my friends, tears on the house!
(Abraham - the one rewarded because he'd kill his child to please his God; Me - one who split her body open to please the tiny God who wanted out)
churning that pre-speech underworld where once we floated like deep sea divers holding hands in the original buddy system
July 29, 2009
I'm not sure why my favorite contemporary poets are women. That seems to be true, though. Now Fennelly joins the list. I'd not known of her until a matter of weeks ago. Pretty early in this book I was reminded of Sylvia Plath, even before I saw her spirit invoked by a blurb on the front cover. I think it's because one of Fennelly's prime themes here is her young daughter, just as Plath wrote about Frieda and Nicholas. The title refers to the tender hooks of love and need our children hold on with. And tenterhooks is anxiety. I don't see much of it here. Fennelly seems to see everything with an enlightened eye. I came to Fennelly via an erotic poem in an anthology. But she writes a nimble verse and uses muscular metaphors--about her daughter and motherhood, tinged with the sexuality that created the two. I like this poetry. Physically, too, this is one of the most attractive paperbacks I own. Much like the author, I imagine. When I finished I didn't want to put Tender Hooks away on a shelf.
August 12, 2021
This is a re-re-read for me. And now, coming back to it after finishing my MA in English Lit & Creative Writing, I find I have a new appreciation for poetry.
Beth Ann Fennelly was a guest speaker at my undergrad college something like 19 years ago (Christ was 2007 really that long ago?!). I picked a couple of her poetry books then on a whim because I enjoyed her readings.
I'll be the first to admit, I am not a mother, not a parent, and have no desire for children whatsoever... still the poems in this collection enthralled me, captivated me, and hit me in ways I can't explain and didn't expect. They left me feeling closer to my own mother.
Beth Ann Fennelly was a guest speaker at my undergrad college something like 19 years ago (Christ was 2007 really that long ago?!). I picked a couple of her poetry books then on a whim because I enjoyed her readings.
I'll be the first to admit, I am not a mother, not a parent, and have no desire for children whatsoever... still the poems in this collection enthralled me, captivated me, and hit me in ways I can't explain and didn't expect. They left me feeling closer to my own mother.
May 6, 2017
Beth Ann Fennelly has a magical writing ability. Her poetry is so beautiful, raw, and honest. Her words will stick with me for a long time. What a delightful collection.
One of my favorites is from Telling the Gospel Truth:
"...so likewise I decided to stop picturing God as a white-haired old white man stop singing Him in hymns picture instead a gender less breeze who valued women and animals and gays and birth control and masturbation, I didn't know then that the threads I pulled ten years later would still be unraveling-"
One of my favorites is from Telling the Gospel Truth:
"...so likewise I decided to stop picturing God as a white-haired old white man stop singing Him in hymns picture instead a gender less breeze who valued women and animals and gays and birth control and masturbation, I didn't know then that the threads I pulled ten years later would still be unraveling-"
November 17, 2018
I read Beth Ann Fennelly's Heating & Cooling and instantly knew I had to find something else of hers to read. This was an excellent book. A blurb on the back says that these poems read like little short stories, and I would agree. I love this style of poetry. The majority of this collection is focused on motherhood and related topics, which isn't something I personally relate to - however, I loved the expressive, emotional intimacy of the topics and how she wrote about them. Just lovely.
June 9, 2018
Beautiful poems about motherhood. I read Beth Ann Fennelly's Letters to a Young Mother and felt like she was putting my feelings about motherhood into words. When I picked up this book, I didn't even realize it was the same author at first, but once I did, I wasn't at all surprised by the beauty of the writing.
January 25, 2020
I read Fennelly’s other books first so this content was a bit repetitive to me (and I preferred it in regular prose vs. poems). That said, these were poems written in plain language that I - as a self-declared non-poem reader - could understand and enjoy. As a new mother myself, I appreciate her take on the ambiguity of parenthood.
September 13, 2023
“Spring, it came late that year.
In wiped out Illinois, it snowed, it snowed,
it snowed some more. Such heavy snow,
our carport groaned beneath it,
then fell hard to its knees.
I waited
for slush, for thaw, for forsythia
to knot like a whip or a rosary, I waited
soberly, desperately,
and—because it had to—
spring did return.”
from Telling the Gospel Truth
In wiped out Illinois, it snowed, it snowed,
it snowed some more. Such heavy snow,
our carport groaned beneath it,
then fell hard to its knees.
I waited
for slush, for thaw, for forsythia
to knot like a whip or a rosary, I waited
soberly, desperately,
and—because it had to—
spring did return.”
from Telling the Gospel Truth
January 15, 2024
A really good book of poetry. Fennelly captures the human experience beautifully. She covers motherhood, miscarriages, and labor in this poetry collection. It feels like an inside joke to those who get it but is not so ostracizing for those who have not experienced it. I find her very progressive for someone who is from Mississippi.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2017
I especially loved the imagery of a mom and baby being on a private island at first, Say Cheese, first solid food secret, and the one where she describes being jealous of her baby. Also, how she worked through feelings about the baby she lost was beyond moving.
September 19, 2017
Beautiful and visceral.
Read
November 29, 2020Engaging and joyful in parts but mostly a miss for me
December 10, 2020
A lovely collection although one section was more challenging (emotionally). Still really enjoying her work though.
December 11, 2021
If you’re looking for a collection of poems on early motherhood, this is a good one. Fennelly’s approach is raw, dazzling, and, at times, scandalous.
Want to read
April 6, 2022WSIRN ep 325 recommend.
September 20, 2022
Poems mostly about motherhood. They work really well when they deal more generally with motherhood, but lose a bit of relatability when they get too personal.
October 6, 2023
Banger — R&R
December 17, 2024
The way she describes her love for her daughter is just perfect and the way she describes the loss of her pregnancy is just heart breaking.
October 4, 2019
Vivid poems about new motherhood that avoid sentimentality and make me never want to give birth. Picked this one up because I read Fennelly’s later book Unmentionables in college and decided to explore more of her work.
November 5, 2019
A raw, unflinching look at the joys and, well, shitty moments (literally) of motherhood. I'm not a mother and have no plans to become one soon, so a lot of the prose didn't connect with me. Probably would have enjoyed this more if I had a kid myself.
January 25, 2014
I'm not a poet and I have no immediate plans to become one, yet I've always loved reading poetry by those much more talented than me. Last year during Women's History Month, my college put on a reading of Beth Ann Fennelly poems, and I was completely enthralled with them--I was happy to revisit some of her work for class.
Of course, being a non-poet, some things do baffle me. It is hard for me to make connections sometimes with poetry, therefore, I tend to read a book of poetry like I should a novel--for me, it makes sense that the themes remain consistent, the tone constant, and the subject singular. So as I read this volume, I struggled to connect the haphazard, low-down, shame-faced "We Are the Renters" with the melancholic, grieving "The Presentation." Both are amazing, beautiful poems I read over and over again, but it made no sense to me that they were printed in the same book--"why," the fiction reader asks, "did the author not write one book of new adulthood poems and another book of new motherhood poems?"
My favorite thing about this book was the motherhood theme--it isn't pretty. It's bloody and loud and scary, and the honesty shook me to the core.
I'm still growing as a poetry reader, and I have a feeling I will be coming back to this volume for answers. There is just so much to be explored.
Of course, being a non-poet, some things do baffle me. It is hard for me to make connections sometimes with poetry, therefore, I tend to read a book of poetry like I should a novel--for me, it makes sense that the themes remain consistent, the tone constant, and the subject singular. So as I read this volume, I struggled to connect the haphazard, low-down, shame-faced "We Are the Renters" with the melancholic, grieving "The Presentation." Both are amazing, beautiful poems I read over and over again, but it made no sense to me that they were printed in the same book--"why," the fiction reader asks, "did the author not write one book of new adulthood poems and another book of new motherhood poems?"
My favorite thing about this book was the motherhood theme--it isn't pretty. It's bloody and loud and scary, and the honesty shook me to the core.
I'm still growing as a poetry reader, and I have a feeling I will be coming back to this volume for answers. There is just so much to be explored.
May 9, 2010
Probably my favorite book of Fennelly's. Though I found less truly standout poems, I felt that the collection as a whole was very strong.
In a previous review, I said that I felt she wasn't truly finding her voice. I definitely do not get that feeling from this collection whatsoever. Her voice is strong and challenging - emotional and yet coolly distant.
I started reading this book the day after the birth of my first child - an interesting choice considering that it really deals with the darker (and at times more touching) sides of parenting as well as the loss of a child. Though dark, it is an understandable, real darkness - nothing forced or cliche. This is a human language, a deeply personal yet universal language of grief and triumph. (and yes, I realize that I have strung together several cliches in order to explain that it is a collection free of cliche. Please forgive me.)
In a previous review, I said that I felt she wasn't truly finding her voice. I definitely do not get that feeling from this collection whatsoever. Her voice is strong and challenging - emotional and yet coolly distant.
I started reading this book the day after the birth of my first child - an interesting choice considering that it really deals with the darker (and at times more touching) sides of parenting as well as the loss of a child. Though dark, it is an understandable, real darkness - nothing forced or cliche. This is a human language, a deeply personal yet universal language of grief and triumph. (and yes, I realize that I have strung together several cliches in order to explain that it is a collection free of cliche. Please forgive me.)
December 22, 2023
Beth Ann Fennelly’s honest words churn “that pre-speech underworld” — illuminating the hidden emotions of motherhood (quote is from Words with Claire).
I don’t feel like any of my words do justice to Tender Hooks, so here is another one of my favorite lines from the most hauntingly beautiful poem in the collection, The Presentation:
“not yet understanding
how absence can define itself,
how, the more you put
behind, beside, in front of it
the more pronounced its corners grow,
the edges sharper honed.
Touch them and you’ll blend.”
I don’t feel like any of my words do justice to Tender Hooks, so here is another one of my favorite lines from the most hauntingly beautiful poem in the collection, The Presentation:
“not yet understanding
how absence can define itself,
how, the more you put
behind, beside, in front of it
the more pronounced its corners grow,
the edges sharper honed.
Touch them and you’ll blend.”
April 1, 2008
This book consisted of short and long poetry. I love poetry, but had a difficult time relating to and liking these poems. Don't get me wrong, I felt these poems were good, but Fennelly's poems are all about motherhood and what it's like to have a child. Since I've never had a kid, nor do I plan to, I didn't really understand it. I would recommend this book to any woman who has had kids; I'm sure they would find it much more emotionally intriguing than I did.
April 20, 2010
I love Beth. I love poetry. I love the subject of motherhood. But something in me kept having a negative reaction to her words. It was, perhaps, the miscarriage subjectry. I am still not able to handle it well. The positives reactions won out in the end but I care not to reread this particular book.
March 9, 2012
Maybe the collection is a little uneven, and there's an awful lot of birth and babies in here, but there were moments I was captivated. (The long, sequence poem about a hunted eagle and what the speaker misses about Catholicism... ...)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews