The Wendys by Allison Benis White


The Wendys
Title : The Wendys
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 194558842X
ISBN-10 : 9781945588426
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 80
Publication : First published March 2, 2020

“Because it is easier to miss a stranger / with your mother’s name,” Allison Benis White instead writes about five women named Wendy as a way into the complex grief that still lingers after the death of a sixth Wendy, the author’s long-absent mother. A series of epistolary poems addressed to Wendy O. Williams becomes an occasion for the speaker to eulogize as well as reflect on the singer’s life and eventual suicide: “What kind of love is death, I’m asking?” In the section devoted to Wendy Torrance, the fictional wife from The Shining who was bludgeoned by her husband, the speaker muses on the inadequacy of language to resolve or even contain grief in the wake of trauma: “A book is a coffin. Hoarsely. A white sheet draped over the cage of being.” Ultimately, The Wendys is a book of silences and space in which tenderness and violence exist in exquisite tension. “If to speak is to die,” White writes in “Ignis Fatuus,” “I will whisper.”

The Wendys Reviews

  • Jon Nakapalau

    ABW is amazing - poems that are haunting and darkly illuminating; like a blinding burst of light in a dark maze - that only lets you see the the many corners that are in front of you. It takes a very skilled poet to be 'poetical' without trying - ABW is one such poet - highest recommendation.

  • Anatoly Molotkov

    "Maybe each word/ is a footprint filling up/ with snow." An astounding collection, in which each page sings with precision and mystery.

  • Kelly Thomas

    One of the best collections I have read in a long time. The language, the surprise, the intimate and surreal. This is a book I will read and reread.

  • Vincent Scarpa

    "Perhaps all singing
    aspires to silence (I have nothing
    left to say), to burn down
    the house where the song began."

  • Layla Lenhardt

    4.5 stars. Such a beautiful concept. Haunting in so many ways.

  • Han VanderHart

    Gorgeous, brilliant. Stunningly conceived & executed!

  • Stephanie

    Haunting, brilliant