Download or read book Earnest, Earnest? written by Eleanor Boudreau and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize Finalist, 2021 Eric Hoffer Award Silver Medal, 2020 Florida Book Award In Earnest, Earnest?, the speaker, Eleanor, writes postcards to her on-again-off-again lover, Earnest. The fact that her lover’s name is Earnest and that their relationship is fraught, raises questions of sincerity and irony, and whether both can be present at the same time. While Earnest can be read literally as Eleanor’s lover, he is best understood as another side of the poet’s self. The ambiguity at play in Earnest, Earnest? is embodied in the form of the “Earnest Postcards” that structure the book—these postcards are experimental in their use of images and formal in their dialogue with the sonnet. Thus, Earnest, Earnest? is a question of tone, address, and form.