The Book of Jane

Jennifer Habel

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781609387075
• eBook ISBN: 9781609387082
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

The Book of Jane is a perceptive, tenacious investigation of gender, authority, and art. Jennifer Habel draws a contrast between the archetype of the lone male genius and the circumscribed, relational lives of women. Habel points repeatedly to discrepancies of scale: the grand arenas of Balanchine, Einstein, and Matisse are set against the female miniature—the dancer's stockings, the anonymous needlepoint, the diary entry, the inventory of a purse.
 

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JANE IN THE PASSENGER SEAT

The floorboards are wet. The heater is gusting. The sky

is low; the fields blank. You’ll have to

ask Dad that, Jane answers. The backseat does not

ask Dad that. It is February in New England.

The destination is Trader Joe’s.

Jane knows that centuries ago women crossed fields

to deliver their neighbors’ children. They wore snowshoes,

brought honey, rum, and butter. The snow

was stirred like their skirts. The snow

was crusted like sleep. The snow

was deep. (The heat is on, Jane tells the backseat.)

As the sky was low, the night was sudden.

The sun, like desire, had occurred.

Jane thinks of wool cloaks congregating on pegs

while the women attended travail. It was hard,

it was very hard & dangerous. The mother

was under very Dangerous Circumstances,

as God intended. Big house little house back house barn,

Jane chants to no one. She will forget

the pickles. She will remember butter

and honey. She will see her husband

standing by a cardboard cupid,

hands in the pockets of his dirty coat,

staring at nothing. Soon, she tells the backseat,

which is nearly true.

After a night, or several, a woman emerged

with news. My wife was Delivered,

a man recorded. His life—his work—

resumed. The fields needed paths.

The animals needed hay. The snow, the wind, the cold—

nothing abated. A passenger’s job is to help.

Sometimes a passenger can’t help

but ask the driver what’s wrong.

DIAGNOSIS: JANE

☑ Not quite ready for a farmshare

☑ Overreacts to flowers

☑ Spends birthday candle wishes on others

☑ Stands still, holding doorknob

☑ Keeps earplugs in porcelain dish

☑ Mumbles hymns

☑ Suggests the fiber farm

☑ Suggests maybe an orchard

☑ Thinks not infrequently of the scene in which Mrs. Ramsay allows Rose to choose her shawl

☑ Blows yet another eyelash from her keyboard

☑ Just would never drink milk from the container

☑ Has the warranty in her files

☑ Knows where the yarn is

☑ Knows how to French braid

☑ Would really like some help with this duvet cover

☑ No, won’t be lonely if her daughter goes upstairs to read to her doll

JANE ALONE

—except when did Jane ever have her mother and how could she forget the ball turret gunner was a gunner and did she really just fake an orgasm to herself?

THE OBSTETRICIAN’S LESSON

Woman; Her Diseases and Remedies, 1851

Study the nature of woman, young gentlemen.

A woman is a needling and thimbling machine. She is a menstruous creature. What does she want with algebra? Walter Scott will never do her any harm. The female is naturally prone to be religious. Her pelvis is broad and shallow. The exterior surface of the labia is skin covered with hair. The clitoris is an organ that juts its point forth. Who wants to know, or ought to know that the ladies have abdomens and wombs but us doctors? I beg you to be aware that the womb was never designed to be skewered. Fear is. The lancet is. Puerperal fever is. (You might be disposed to ask why it is.) Barrenness is. To suffer an abortion is. The right breast is. The left one. The whole mass of the nipple itself. You will find a fruitful source of trouble to the female. She has a head almost too small for intellect, but just big enough for love. Her voice. Her susceptible soul. Her inability. As for her beauty. And the sweet sounds of her singing! What do we owe her? What could you do to give the uterus a kindlier disposition? A woman’s womb aches. I do not like to see a woman delivered of her child too easily. Inducement is. The hot iron is. Blood-letting is. My hand. The speculum. Perversion is. I assure you that it is.

Gentlemen, do you ask me what is the use of all these remarks? A man’s perceptions are his perceptions, and they are what he is.

The womb is

a cul-de-sac

THE DOLL IN THE CONVENT

The convent is stone:

the casket is glass:

the cradle is wood:

the baby is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Jane and the Relative Adverb
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• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Series List