Sunday Houses the Sunday House: Iowa Poetry Prize

2006 Iowa Poetry Prize winner
In Sunday Houses the Sunday House, Elizabeth Hughey embraces the possibility that we can learn as much from objects as we can from other people, from the inanimate as much as the animate. Each poem descends upon a place and a time, takes a few notes, and then leaves quietly without slamming any doors. Sunday Houses the Sunday House reveals what the world is like when your attention is focused elsewhere, when your head is turned the other way.
    In ineffably beautiful verse, Hughey captures moments in time and place with confidence but without being judgmental. Although it may seem that the scope of these poems is rather small—a good party, a couple of eggs, a housekeeper’s daydream—they reveal  both a deep intelligence and a spirit of whimsy. Gertrude Stein wrote that she wanted to be “drunk with nouns,” and in a sense that is what Hughey has accomplished here.