Skunk Hour

I feel like "Skunk Hour" rounds out this section of poems rather well. It hits on several of themes of the section: his family members (mostly focused on his father), his illness, and the colors (with a focus on blue), and nature. The very first verse stanza seems to be about his grandparents. The allusion to "first selectman" who would otherwise serve as the head of the town or village could be a reference to his grandfather whom Lowell looked up to. The fact that the first selectman is also a farmer, and Lowell refers to his Grandfather owning a farm in "My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow," also helps this assumption. The hermit heiress' son being a bishop then would reflect the first poem of the section which focuses on the death of Lowell's uncle. The second stanza also seems to be a reflection of the first few poems with the mention of "hierarchic privacy," and "Queen Victoria's century."

The third and fourth stanza are more about the poems involving his parents. Especially given the language: L.L. Bean (a recreational store), lobstermen, summer millionaire, etc. (clearly all pertaining to his father who once served in the Navy). The fifth and sixth stanzas reflect the poems like "Waking in the Blue" and "Home After Three Months Away" which deal directly with Lowell's struggle with his psychological issues and the time he spent in a sanitarium. He bluntly ends the fourth stanza with "My mind's not right." Then further adds to a description of his own suffering with "...I hear/my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,/as if my hand were at its throat.../I myself am hell."

Finally, we end the poem with the final two stanzas describing a night in the life of a family of skunks while Lowell watches. Descriptions of nature from Lowell's perspective hearken to the last few poems of this section such as "Memories of West Street and Lepke" and "Man and
Wife." Both of the aforementioned poems describe Lowell (or the narrator) admiring nature. In "Memories" he talks about the lives going on around him and even mentions "the man/scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans" very much so like the skunks in "Skunk Hour." All of the references to black and white objects in the last two stanzas (skunks, white stripes, moonlight, moonstruck eyes, chalk-dry, sour cream, ostrich tail) sends me back to the very first poem of the selection ("My Last Afternoon") in which he mentions his uncle blending "to the one color" right after he describes a black pile and a white pile. Given all of these references to the earlier poems, and the progression of the final poem itself, I would have to say that it is the perfect way to end the entire section.