Home After Three Months Away

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1959

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

Allen Ginsberg was a key Beatnik member—a bohemian literary movement whose members wrote relatively transgressive poetry and novels during the middle part of the 1900s. Although Lowell wasn’t a Beatnik, Ginsberg inspired him, and critics believed Ginsberg’s Confessional poetry pushed Lowell to write more overt personal poems, like “Home After Three Months Away” and the other Confessional texts that appear in Life Studies. “Howl” predates Life Studies but features many of its themes, including mental anguish. “Howl” begins with the speaker, Ginsberg, or his poetic persona, declaring, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked” (Line 1). As with Lowell, Ginsberg describes people in a disquieting state. Like Lowell, Ginsberg includes real-life experiences. Unlike Lowell’s poem, Ginsberg’s work features a propulsive rhythm, with its long, breathless lines and the repetition of “who.”

“Skunk Hour” by Robert Lowell (1959)

Life Studies ends with “Skunk Hour.” The poem is probably more well-known than “Home After Three Months Away,” yet it tackles similar themes and ideas. In “Home After Three Months Away,” Lowell uses nature and irony to symbolize his mental health. In “Skunk Hour,” Lowell represents his mental health through a dilapidated town in Maine occupied by skunks. “The season’s ill” (Line 13), declares Lowell. He adds, “My mind’s not right” (Line 30), and then quips, “I myself am hell” (Line 35). This line is an allusion since it connects to John Milton’s epic Christian poem about the fall of Adam and Eve, Paradise Lost (1667). In Book Four, Satan says, “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.” Like Satan in Milton’s narrative and Lowell’s persona in “Home After Three Months Away,” the Lowell persona in “Skunk Hour” experiences sharp torment.

“The Crazy Woman” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)

“The Crazy Woman” features irony, as Brooks presents alleged mental anguish in three neat quatrains (four-line stanzas) with melodious rhymes. The pleasant sound and tidy form counter the picture of “crazy” suggested by the title. The poem is also ironic because, unlike Lowell, Brooks doesn’t appear to be speaking about a person with mental health conditions. Brooks’s poem deals with a woman who receives an incorrect diagnosis because she doesn’t follow the norms and prefers gloomy November over sunny May. As with Lowell’s poem, other voices lack an accurate view of what’s happening. Lowell isn’t recuperating or cured, and Brooks’s “crazy” woman isn’t experiencing a mental health condition.

Further Literary Resources

The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (1968)

Norman Mailer’s account of a protest against the Vietnam War turns Robert Lowell into a character. Lowell isn’t a character in his poem: He’s a character in Mailer’s nonfiction novel—a work that mixes reality and storytelling. Mailer’s work comes from real life since Lowell, Mailer, and many others marched on the Pentagon to protest the deadly war in 1967. Yet, like Lowell’s poetry, the book is manipulated or fictionalized. While “Home After Three Months Away” focuses on Lowell’s psychological experiences, Lowell maintained an active engagement with the politics of his time. Before he protested the Vietnam War with Mailer, he refused to fight in World War II, which earned him a four-month jail sentence.

Seduction and Betrayal by Elizabeth Hardwick (1974)

Elizabeth Hardwick was Lowell’s second wife. She’s the mom in the poem and, most likely, the person who asks the question, “Is Richard now himself again?” (Line 11). Hardwick enjoyed a successful literary career. One of her acclaimed books is Seduction and Betrayal—a collection of essays about women in literature. She discusses Sylvia Plath, a student of Lowell’s. She also focuses on Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hardwick ended up as a character in Lowell’s poetry, and Zelda became a character in Fitzgerald’s novels. In her essays, Hardwick confronts the fraught relationship between a writer’s life and their work.

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell edited by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton (2008)

Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were practically best friends. Throughout their lives, they wrote numerous letters to one another that provide insight into their friendship, their personal lives, and their work. The letters collected in the book show their disagreements about the merits of Confessional poetry and how to use poetry to confront political issues. The letters also demonstrate Bishop’s disapproval of how Lowell used Hardwick’s letters in his poetry. Bishop accused Lowell of “loading the dice” against Hardwick by not only using her words but changing them to fit his poems in The Dolphin. “[A]ren’t you violating a trust?” Bishop asks. Her question spotlights the moral issues of Lowell’s Confessional poetry, which aren’t completely absent from “Home After Three Months Away” since Hardwick’s words appear there.