Body My House: May Swenson’s Work and Life ed. by Paul Crumbley, Patricia M. Gantt (review)

B o o k R e v ie w s and, thus, influenced, challenged, and changed prevailing preconceptions and aesthetics of home. The friction between men and women, indigenous cultures and white society, and professionals and labor workers in relation to domesticity put into question the notion that home work is natural to women and rewarding for its own sake and demonstrated that domestic work is an idea wholly constructed by the social, cultural, and economic forces at play. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Simonsen’s discussion is the explo­ ration of how white middle-class domestic ideals were used to encourage the assimilation process of American Indian women into white society. The binary of “savage” versus “civilized” was a barometer through which many domestic workers defined themselves, but the promotion of the white middle-class way of life wasn’t always so easy when white women felt that native women had more freedom in their home life. Additionally, according to Simonsen, “by the early twentieth century, some white women were reversing the claims of earlier reformers by alleging that native women were more domestic than their white sisters” (151). This reversal challenged the prevailing power dynamic that needed to be in place in order to establish allotments and build houses on reservations, a dynamic that valued the white domestic ideal over traditional Indian domestic practices. That the domestic sphere is a site of imperialism becomes clear as Simonsen provides a thorough investigation into how creat­ ing “home” is intimately connected to nation building, the American expan­ sionist endeavor, and racial hierarchies. Ranging over six decades, Making Home Work is a valuable scholarly work that would be engaging to readers interested in nineteenth-century disputes in the American West over women’s labor, gender roles, indigenous cultures and assimilation, and attitudes toward housework and home. Simonsen’s analysis of the historical meanings of domesticity reminds us that a house is often built on contested ground, that home is a territory that is hardly an escape from political life but rather a fully realized expression of it. Body My House: May Swenson’s Work and Life. Edited by Paul Crumbley and Patricia M. Gantt. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2006. 254 pages, $34-95. Reviewed by Sarah Stoeckl University of Oregon May Swenson was, among other things, a western poet and a Utah poet, and Body My House: May Swenson’s Life and Work is poignantly tied to the poet’s roots in Logan, where she grew up, and to Utah State University, where she went to school and where her work was celebrated during the Tanner Symposium of 2004- Just as anyone interested in mountain aesthetics should experience Utah, anyone intrigued by Swenson should experience Body My House, the first collection of critical essays devoted to her work. W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e W in t e r 2 0 0 8 Body My House begins with “For May Swenson,” a poetic homage written by the late Kenneth W. Brewer, Utah’s former poet laureate. The poem honors many aspects found in Swenson’s poetry, including sensuality, philosophy, and play with form. The book contains essays written by Swenson aficionados of all stripes. From scholars to family members, all provide a fitting tribute to a truly original poet. R. R. Knudson, Swenson’s partner and the executor of her estate, writes poignantly about Swenson’s love poems and letters, particularly to her Mormon family with whom she retained close ties despite their differences. Following Knudson, Swenson’s brother Paul Swenson probes her seventeenyear love affair with Pearl Schwartz. Included in the volume are also a chronol­ ogy of Swenson’s life, written by coeditors Paul Crumbley and Patricia Gantt, and a bibliography of Swenson’s works, compiled by her friend Alice Geffen, edited and updated by Maure Lyn Smith. The bibliography, especially, will be invaluable to Swenson scholars new and old. While Body My House has no weak links, some essays stand out more than others. Alicia Ostriker initiates an interesting discussion of Walt W hitman’s paternalistic influence on his...