Archive of the Undressed

September 2012
80 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-66-0

From twirling tassels to dead playmates Archive of the Undressed is a sharp, darkly comic look at the image of women in a society between changing sexual mores. Jeanette Lynes brings her iconic style to these poems, fearlessly critiquing attitudes towards women, poking at Canadian identity and finding something sexy in the settlement of “The Queen’s Bush” – Northern Ontario. A wickedly pointed and funny collection, Archive of the Undressed will overturn any reader’s belief that poetry is boring.   

Reviews

Discoveries of the Undressed (Steven Buechler, The Library of Pacific Tranquility, 13/10/2014)
“Archive of the Undressed by Jeanette Lynes is a great collection of poetry and a brilliant piece of literature. Her thoughts and observations are unique, giving great thought to the human condition.”

Poetry reviews (Barbara Carey, Toronto Star, 10/05/2013)
“In essence, Lynes is the Tina Fey of Canadian poetry. She’s at her best when combining the farcical with a sharp eye for the telling detail.... Though it revisits a historical period, there’s nothing dated about ‘Archive of the Undressed’: it’s smart, funny and relevant.”

Review (Kimmy Beach, Canadian Poetries, 01/04/2013)
“This book is great, rollicking fun, and a joyous pop-camp romp. To read the queen of CanPo popcult's defiant deconstruction of skin-mag culture is a welcome shot in the arm for anyone who wants Canadian poetry to occasionally be more damn fun.”

The Poetry Shelf (Wisconsin Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review, 01/03/2013)
"Archive of the Undressed is a must for contemporary poetry collections."

Starred Review (Liz Worth, Quill & Quire, 01/12/2012)
“Lynes builds lines of connection with the women she portrays. She presents them intimately, makes them so real they seem touchable – probably not unlike the way Playboy readers felt decades ago when they gazed upon the first centrefolds.”

Interviews

Heed warnings of playboys, bunnies (Bill Robertson, StarPhoenix, 16/02/2013)
“Archive of the Undressed is a collection packed with fun, frolic, irony, history, sociology, literature, autobiography, as well as being a serious meditation on loneliness and its vectors of disenchantment, disappointment, and disengagement at the heart (or lower) of the girl-next-door fantasy.”

Jeanette Lynes - Archive of the Undressed (an interview) (Toronto Quarterly, 09/11/2012)
"Archive of the Undressed was inspired by a bunch of old Playboy magazines from the 1960’s and 70’s that I came upon. Research into Hugh Hefner and Playboy led to a wider exploration of showgirls, pin-up, and burlesque."

Articles

Geomantic Riposte: Archive of the Undressed (Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket2, 12/05/2014)
“[Archive of the Undressed] is her ‘XXXphrastic’ reaction to a collection of vintage Playboy magazines, “touched up” by her critical eye and yet in the same buttonless gasp, balanced by her satirical send-up of fantasy tropes that send the blood rushing to the reader’s ... brain.”

Fall book season packed with variety and options (Carla Lucchetta, Vancouver Sun, 14/09/2012)
"Poet and novelist Jeanette Lynes has some fun with ever-evolving sexual mores in her sixth collection, Archive of the Undressed.”

Fall preview 2012: crime & mystery, short stories, graphica, and poetry (Stuart Woods, Quill & Quire, 02/08/2012)
"Her sixth collection, Archive of the Undressed (Wolsak & Wynn, $17 pa., Sept.), is a darkly comic take on the representation of women during a period of changing sexual mores."

About the Author

Jeanette Lynes' poems have been shortlisted for The Pat Lowther Memorial Award, The Matrix Lit POP Award and Room Magazine’s poetry contest, among others. They have received The Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award and The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Award. Jeanette’s novel, The Factory Voice, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a ReLit Award, and Bedlam Cowslip: The John Clare Poems, Jeanette's seventh book of poetry, won the 2016 Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award. Jeanette lives in Saskatoon where she directs the M.F.A. in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan.

Other titles by this Author

Bedlam Cowslip: The John Clare Poems (2015)

The New Blue Distance (2009)

Left Fields (2003)

A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway (1999)