The contradictions of privilege and want, the dynamics of gay marriage, the joy of a good cocktail — all enter the mix of poems exploring home, marriage, climate, travel, war, sensuality, tea, and, yes, housekeeping!
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“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
“Whitacre’s Good Housekeeping clears a path for us to see ourselves. His poems excavate our ritualistic urges to make order of chaos, sifting through the layers of collected social and self-made constructs that are both our doing and undoing. He reveals the domesticated hunters and gatherers who have evolved with a ruthlessness to attain a certain level of comfort — primal urban dwellers in search of love, sex, and affirmations of purpose while constantly rinsing away the bloody stains of their longings. Whitacre’s characters see and are seen as they envision themselves without the blur or the inconvenience of truth, yet nature slips between the cracks of urban decay with an aching urgency. One wonders, with the corrosive weathering of time and as the artificial lights dim, might we see ourselves reflected in the patina of the resilient light from within?”
—REGINA TAYLOR, writer and director of the musical Crowns