Bruce E. Whitacre
Award Winning Poetry, Memoir and Translation
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping brings together 24 poems exploring the contradictions of privilege and want, gay marriage, home, travel, war, sensuality, climate, and the simple pleasures of everyday life.
With wit and intimacy, Bruce E. Whitacre examines the complexities of relationships, identity, and the world around us. The collection was selected as an Editor’s Pick by BookLife Reviews and includes “The Fold Out Couch,” nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize.
Whitacre’s Good Housekeeping is a piercing gaze into the locus of human life, the home—or “this cave, this tree, // this realm where loved ones circle and unwind.” Whitacre takes on timeless themes and in a contemporary context, touching on consumerism, war, and the climate crisis, while also entering an intimate space where mundane domestic scenes connect to what makes us most human: love, memory, and grief.
⎯ BookLife (Editors Pick)
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 in At the Inkwell
“A joyful and precise exploration of the queer domestic, a long love explored in four decades of devotion and routine. By turns playful, erotic, and nostalgic, these poems map out a fully lived life, punctuated by dishes to serve and dishes to wash. Whitacre’s dazzling formalism and gorgeous soundwork carry this book forward with a gentle power, like the wind in a sail.”
—JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, author of Hold Me Tight
The Elk in the Glade
The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks tells the captivating story of Jennie Hicks, a pioneer and painter who builds a life in the small towns of Nebraska’s Hi-Line during the early 20th century.
Told through a collection of narrative poems, the book follows Jennie from her move from Ohio through the hardships of pioneer life, including financial struggle, loss, family challenges, and the demands of a close knit community.
“Side by side with the paintings, Whitacre’s book serves as a deeply personal yet relatable account of one woman’s life and turn-of-the-century lifestyle—and clearly demonstrates why this talented painter and pioneer stands as someone to remember.”
—BookLife by Publishers Weekly
“A lovely and loving celebration of his remarkable great grandmother, Jennie Hicks’s, life and art, and an inspiring example of how a woman’s artistic discipline gave her the courage and insight to transcend the hardships of the Nebraska frontier.”
—Ladette Randolph, Editor in Chief, Ploughshares
“Bruce E. Whitacre’s ability to capture this support network and the extraordinary efforts of Jennie Hicks in a manner that reaches beyond the usual literary or arts reader makes her story appealing to a much wider audience.”
—Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review