'Skunk Hour' - A Poem by Robert Lowell

Robert Lowell has penned many poems over his illustrious career, but I wanted to start with this particular piece. It is dedicated to Elizabeth Bishop, another one of my favorite poets. Robert Lowell had an interesting relationship, if you will, with Elizabeth Bishop, which we will discuss a little later. Ironically, Elizabeth Bishop is not listed on a lot of the lists citing Confessional Poets. However, based on some of the classes that I have taken both online and at schools, I believe that she falls into this 'school's category', so we will discuss her independently, in one of the later lessons. This particular citing of 'Skunk Hour' is from the Poetry Foundation's website. I encourage you to read it, and see if you annotate it. We will begin to do that in forthcoming lessons.