Hail, the Invisible Watchman
Written by Alexandra Oliver
Narrated by Alexandra Oliver
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Hail, The Invisible Watchman is haunted poetry—Oliver’s formal schemes are as tidy as a picket-fence and as suggestive; behind the charm of rhyme is a vibrant, dark exploration of domestic and social alienation.
The poems in Hail, the Invisible Watchman are as tidy as a picket-fence—and as suggestive. Behind the charms of iambs lurks a dark exploration of domestic and social alienation. Metered rhyme sets the tone like a chilling piano score as insidiousness creeps into the neighbourhood. A spectral narrator surveils social gatherings in the town of Sherbet Lake; community members chime in, each revealing their various troubles and hypocrisies; an eerie reimagining of an Ethel Wilson novel follows a young woman into a taboo friendship with an enigmatic divorcée. In taut poetic structures across three succinct sections, Alexandra Oliver’s conflation of the mundane and the phantasmagoric produces a scintillating portrait of the suburban uncanny.
Alexandra Oliver
Alexandra Oliver was born in Vancouver, BC. She is the author of three collections published through Biblioasis: Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (2013; recipient of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award), Let the Empire Down ( 2016), and Hail, the Invisible Watchman (2022). Her libretto for From the Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, conceived in conjunction with composer Scott Wilson at the University of Birmingham, was performed by Continuum Music in Toronto in December, 2017. Oliver is a past co-editor of Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Everyman’s Library/Random House, 2015) as well as of the formalist journal The Rotary Dial. She has performed her work for CBC Radio and NPR, as well as at The National Poetry Slam and numerous festivals and conferences. Oliver holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program and a Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University. She lives in Burlington, Ontario with her husband and son.
Related to Hail, the Invisible Watchman
Related audiobooks
Breathing In Rio Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpoon River Anthology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bound By Blood Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Down from Troy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spoon River Anthology Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Only Harmless Great Thing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5[SQUELCH PROCEDURES] Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heart Over Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Notorious Life: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Twenty-Ninth Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tough Boy Sonatas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night at the Fitz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Past Is Never: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wobegon Boy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sleeping Dogs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emily Dickinson: Poems and Letters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lot Six: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Girls \ Muchachas ordinarias (Spanish edition): Memorias Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Portrait of the Artist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jungle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Furies: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53 Dozen Poems: From the Writer's Almanac Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lightning Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mean Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Words I Never Wrote Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Dylan Thomas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
Every Word You Cannot Say Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Strength In Our Scars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rumi's Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Classic Hundred Poems: All-Time Favorites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poetry of Robert Frost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Poems: Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inferno of Dante Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poems of T.S. Eliot Read by Jeremy Irons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poetry of Walt Whitman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Milk and Honey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Raven and Other Poems: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf: Translated by Seamus Heaney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Ching: The Book of Change Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Keats - The Poetry Of Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Metamorphoses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Thousand Gifts 10th Anniversary Edition: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Citizen: An American Lyric Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spirits in Bondage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5W. B. Yeats: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Hail, the Invisible Watchman
1 rating0 reviews