Open House: Poems

"With its high spirits, its love of textures of different kinds of writing, its search for ways to frame ambitious energies. . ."From L'Hotel Terminus Notebooks" (a poem within Open House ) advances with a determination to keep the author interested and alive to her materials; in places, amused with itself and hopscotching, in places veering into unexpected depths, it is an immensely lively performance." _____- Robert Hass, former US Poet Laureate, in The Kenyon Review

Open House is the year 2001 winner of the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry for a First Book. We at Zoo are eminently pleased to have such a fine book of verse for our inaugural Kenyon Review Prize volume. Fennelly's poems are well poised in their witty and sometime sassy ruminations, often "maximalist" in their scope (see "From L' HÙtel Terminus Notebooks") and the pleasure one takes within them is of the rarest breed: it is the pleasure of unexpected revelation. Open House comes introduced by series judge and Kenyon Review poetry editor, David Baker.