"Skunk Hour" is the final poem in Robert Lowell's trailblazing collection Life Studies (1959). Its speaker first describes some features and residents of a declining coastal town, then confesses that he's having a mental health crisis there—apparently a bout of severe depression. The foraging skunks he witnesses outside his house, seem to embody the awfulness of his situation and/or the resilience he may need to survive it. The "Skunk Hour" thus becomes a metaphor for a low point or "dark night of the soul." First published in Partisan Review in 1958, the poem marked a key contribution to the Confessionalist movement and remains one of Lowell's most famous.

• Read the full text of “Skunk Hour”

• “Skunk Hour” Summary

• “Skunk Hour” Themes

  • 

    Depression, Despair, and Resilience

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-48
  • 

    Love and Loneliness

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-36
    • Lines 43-48
  • 

    Civic Life and Decay

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-30
    • Lines 37-42

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Skunk Hour”

  • Lines 1-6

    Nautilus Island's hermit ...
    ... in her dotage.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-12

    Thirsting for ...
    ... lets them fall.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-18

    The season's ill— ...
    ... covers Blue Hill.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 19-24

    And now our ...
    ... he'd rather marry.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 25-30

    One dark night, ...
    ... mind's not right.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 31-36

    A car radio ...
    ... nobody's here—

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 37-42

    only skunks, that ...
    ... the Trinitarian Church.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 43-48

    I stand on ...
    ... will not scare.

    

    

    

    

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• “Skunk Hour” Symbols

  • 

    Skunks

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 37-40: “only skunks, that search / in the moonlight for a bite to eat. / They march on their soles up Main Street: / white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire”
    • Lines 45-48: “a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. / She jabs her wedge-head in a cup / of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, / and will not scare.”

• “Skunk Hour” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-9: “Thirsting for / the hierarchic privacy / of Queen Victoria's century,”
    • Line 18: “A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.”
    • Line 26: “my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull;”
    • Line 28: “they lay together, hull to hull,”
    • Line 29: “where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .”
    • Line 31: “A car radio bleats,”
    • Lines 32-34: “I hear / my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, / as if my hand were at its throat. . . .”
    • Line 35: “I myself am hell;”
    • Line 40: “moonstruck eyes' red fire”
    • Lines 41-42: “under the chalk-dry and spar spire / of the Trinitarian Church.”
    • Line 45: “her column of kittens”
    • Line 46: “She jabs her wedge-head”
    • Line 47: “drops her ostrich tail,”

  • Juxtaposition

    

    

    

    

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    Where juxtaposition appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-48

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “still,” “her”
    • Line 3: “her,” “still”
    • Line 4: “Her,” “Her”
    • Line 6: “her”
    • Line 13: “ill”
    • Line 21: “orange”
    • Line 22: “orange”
    • Line 27: “love-cars”
    • Line 28: “hull,” “hull”
    • Line 31: “car”
    • Line 32: “Love,” “Love”
    • Line 33: “ill-spirit”
    • Line 37: “skunks”
    • Line 38: “moonlight”
    • Line 40: “moonstruck”
    • Line 45: “skunk”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “still,” “Spartan”
    • Line 3: “still,” “sea”
    • Line 4: “son's”
    • Line 5: “selectman”
    • Line 11: “facing”
    • Line 12: “fall”
    • Line 13: “season's”
    • Line 14: “summer”
    • Line 15: “seemed”
    • Line 16: “nine-knot”
    • Line 21: “fishnet's filled,” “cork”
    • Line 22: “cobbler's”
    • Line 23: “money”
    • Line 24: “marry”
    • Line 27: “love-cars. Lights,” “turned”
    • Line 28: “lay,” “together,” “to”
    • Line 30: “My mind's”
    • Line 33: “spirit,” “sob”
    • Line 34: “hand”
    • Line 35: “hell”
    • Line 36: “here”
    • Line 37: “skunks,” “search”
    • Line 38: “moonlight”
    • Line 39: “They,” “march,” “their,” “soles,” “Main,” “Street”
    • Line 40: “stripes”
    • Line 41: “chalk-dry,” “spar spire”
    • Line 42: “Church”
    • Line 43: “stand”
    • Line 44: “back,” “steps,” “breathe”
    • Line 45: “skunk,” “column,” “kittens,” “swills”
    • Line 46: “cup”
    • Line 47: “sour,” “cream”
    • Line 48: “scare”

• “Skunk Hour” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Heiress
  • Nautilus Island
  • Spartan
  • Graze
  • First selectman
  • Her farmer
  • Dotage
  • Hierarchic
  • Queen Victoria's century
  • Eyesores
  • L. L. Bean
  • Nine-knot yawl
  • Lobstermen
  • Red fox stain
  • Fairy decorator
  • Fishnet/orange cork
  • Cobbler's bench
  • Awl
  • Hill's skull
  • Tudor Ford
  • Love-cars
  • Shelves on
  • "Love, O careless Love"
  • Ill-spirit
  • Moonstruck
  • Spar
  • Spire
  • Trinitarian Church
  • Column
  • Swills
  • Wedge-head
  • Ostrich tail
  • (Location in poem: Lines 1-2: “Nautilus Island's hermit / heiress”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Skunk Hour”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Skunk Hour” Speaker

• “Skunk Hour” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Skunk Hour”

• More “Skunk Hour” Resources

  • External Resources

    • The Poem Aloud — Listen to Robert Lowell read "Skunk Hour."

    • More on "Careless Love" — Some background on the classic song mentioned in "Skunk Hour."

    • More About Confessionalism — An introduction to the movement with which Lowell was closely associated.

    • "Robert Lowell 101" — An introduction to Lowell's work, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

    • The Poet's Life and Work — A brief biography of Lowell at Poets.org.

    • A Chat with Lowell — Lowell discusses and reads some of his poems in a 1966 documentary.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Lowell

    • For the Union Dead

    • Night Sweat

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