Waiting for Bluebeard
Published on 27. March 2014
112 pages
978-1-78037-082-8 (ISBN)
Description
Waiting for Bluebeard tries to understand how a girl could grow up to be the woman living in Bluebeard's house. The story begins with a part-remembered, part-imagined childhood, where seances are held, and a father drowns in oil beneath the skeleton of his car. When her childhood home coughs up birds in the parlour, the girl enters Bluebeard's house paying the tariff of a single layer of skin. This is only the first stage of her disappearing, as she searches for a phantom child in a house where Bluebeard haunts the corridors like a sobbing wolf. Waiting for Bluebeard is Helen Ivory's fourth book of poems.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tarset
United Kingdom
File size
0,22 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-082-8 (9781780370828)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears, and is a lecturer for the UEA/National Centre for Writing online creative writing programme. She has published five collections with Bloodaxe Books: The Double Life of Clocks (2002), The Dog in the Sky (2006), The Breakfast Machine (2010), Waiting for Bluebeard (2013) and The Anatomical Venus (2019). Fool's World, a collaborative Tarot with artist Tom de Freston (Gatehouse Press), won the 2016 Saboteur Best Collaborative Work award. A book of collage/ mixed media poems, Hear What the Moon Told Me, was published KFS in 2017, and a chapbook, Maps of the Abandoned City, by SurVision in 2019. She has received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, and was awarded Arts Council funding and an Author's Award from the Society of Authors to work on The Anatomical Venus. She lives in Norwich.
Content
- Cover
- Description
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- PART ONE
- Moon Landing
- My mother's wedding dress
- What the Moon Said
- First Born
- A Beginning
- The Stolen Babies
- Nights
- What the Dark Said
- Playing House
- My Mother's Room
- What the Stars Said
- Drive
- Paper
- Crafts
- Things My Mother Never Told Me
- Take. From. Away.
- Bird Fish
- The Family at Night
- Sunday Morning
- What the Cat Said
- Jonah the Giant Whale
- Trampoline
- What the Sea Said
- My Father and the Sand Boat
- Late
- What the Snow Said
- Chameleon
- Creature
- Bird
- Trinity
- Mrs Day
- Red Coat
- Quarantine
- The Paper Bag Man
- Sick Bed
- What the Bed Said
- The Story of the Shed
- My Two Fathers
- Oil
- Her Father's Sketchbooks
- Night Shift
- My Father's Accident
- Her Uncle's New House
- The Butchery
- Séance Night
- Her Wedding Ring
- The Story of Fire
- My Grandmother's Lodger
- The Hypnotist
- Another 3 a.m. Call
- Yellow Fields
- Bride
- Hospital Visit
- Ward
- My Grandmother and Mrs Crow
- The Unmade Phone Call
- Coming Home
- Princess of Radiation
- Things I Should Have Asked My Grandmother
- My Grandmother's Things
- Hosanna
- At the Bus Stop
- Dinner and Dancing with Mr Halfpenny's Cat
- The Inside-out House
- What the House Said
- What the Earth Said
- The House of Thorns
- PART TWO
- Waiting for Bluebeard
- The Disappearing
- In Bluebeard's Garden
- At the Dress Shop
- Bluebeard's Letters
- Bluebeard's Ancestors
- The Disappearing
- Dog
- The Disappearing
- A Week with Bluebeard
- Child
- The Disappearing
- Rabbit Season
- Bluebeard's Music
- Bluebeard at Night
- The Disappearing
- Bluebeard at Work
- Bluebeard at the Bookshop
- The Disappearing
- In Bluebeard's Kitchen
- The Disappearing
- Bluebeard the Chef
- The Disappearing
- Liminal
- Grass
- Bluebeard and the Wolves
- The Disappearing
- Hide
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Copyright
