Skunk Hour
'Skunk Hour' is one of Robert Lowell's most frequently anthologized poems. It was published in his groundbreaking book of poems, Life Studies, and is regarded as a key early example of Confessional poetry.
Composition
'Skunk Hour' was the final poem in Life Studies, but it was the first to be completed. Lowell began work on the poem in August 1957, and the poem was first published, alongside the poems "Man and Wife" and "Memories of West Street and Lepke" in the January 1958 issue of the Partisan Review.
He describes the writing of it thus: "I began writing lines in a new style. No poem, however, got finished and soon I left off and tried to forget the whole headache. ... When I began writing 'Skunk Hour', I felt that most of what I knew about writing was a hindrance. The dedication is to Elizabeth Bishop, because re-reading her suggested a way of breaking through the shell of my old manner." The poem was in part based on Bishop's poem "Armadillo" and Lowell wrote that "her rhythms, idiom, images, and stanza structure seemed to belong to a later century... Both 'Skunk Hour' and 'The Armadillo' use short line stanzas, start with drifting description, and end with a single animal."
Podcasts:
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by Ebony Tears
Skunk Hour
by: Ebony TearsWe all try to catch the beauty, in a world that's mouldering
And we dream of tomorrow, anything to ease this pain
Can you deal with the truth, can you deal with life itself
Or will you hide behind, retouch the picture and play the game
I try to see the real me, but there's someone else in here
Open your eyes you coward, now it's time to confront yourself
Take a look inside, go on just face the pain
Can you deal with yourself, can you see what's really you?
Or will you close your eyes, and hide behind another lie
I'd like to see the real me. But I'm afraid to look inside
I am fear, the lord of pain. I'll break you down, with my bare hands
I'm your conscience, deep inside. I feed your mind, you're full of lies
Plunge into oceans of hate restrained by, the anger you create
Falling, from the stairs inside your mind, crawling helpless like a child
When you try to see things clearly, shattered pictures erase your mind
You hear voices on the inside, then your mind goes blank
Trapped inside your inner self forced to see the truth
There's no use to run cause the doors are closed
No more excuses the truth you cannot bend
It's hard to deal with life when you're used to pretend
A psychotic mind erases and deconstructs to improve
It'll leave you blinded with a hallucinating truth
No more excuses the truth you cannot bend
It's hard to deal wiht life when you're used to pretend
If I'd only known the answer
Life will be easier when you see who you are
No more fear no more lies se the truth with new eyes
Killer instinct you face the pain
Nothing will ever stop you
Killer instinct play the game
New eyes no longer afraid
You'll never hide again
New eyes no longer blind