Susan Howe

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Susan Howe (June 10, 1937 in Boston, MA) is an American poet and critic who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others. Her work has often been classified as Postmodern, and it expands traditional notions of genre (fiction, essay, poetry). Her books are layered with historical, mythical and other references, and contain lyrical echos of sound yet they are never pinned down by a consistent metrical pattern or traditional poetic rhyme scheme. Her sister is the poet Fanny Howe and her niece is the author Danzy Senna.

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[edit] Personal life

Howe was born in Boston and grew up in Cambridge, MA. Her mother, Mary Louise Manning, was Irish and wrote plays and acted for the Abbey Theatre. Her father, Mark DeWolfe Howe, was a professor at Harvard Law School. Howe graduated from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts (1961). She was married to the sculptor David Von Schlegel until his death (1991). Her second husband, Peter Hewitt Hare, a noted philosopher and Professor at the University of Buffalo, died in January 2008. She now lives in Guilford, Connecticut.

[edit] Publications

Howe is author of a number of books of poetry, including Europe of Trusts: Selected Poems (1990), Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979 (1996) and The Midnight (2003), and two books of criticism, The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History (1993) and My Emily Dickinson (1985). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, and the important Language School gathering of poets: In the American Tree (edited by Ron Silliman).

In 2003, Howe started collaborating with experimental musician David Grubbs. The results were released on two CDs: Thiefth (featuring the poems Thorow and Melville's Marginalia) and Songs of the Labadie Tract.

Timeline of Susan Howe’s publications

  • The End of Art (1974)
  • Hinge Picture (1974)
  • Chanting at the Crystal Sea (1975)
  • Secret History of the Dividing Line (1978)
  • The Western Borders (1979)
  • Cabbage Gardens (1979)
  • The Liberties (1980)
  • Pythagorean Silence (1982)
  • Defenestration of Prague (1983)
    • The Liberties
  • My Emily Dickinson (1985; reissued 2007)
  • Incloser (1985)
  • Heliopathy (1986)
  • Articulation of Sound Forms in Time (1987)
  • A Bibliography of the King’s Book, or Eikon Basilike (1989)
  • The Europe of Trusts (1990)
    • Pythagorean Silence
    • Defenestration of Prague
    • The Liberties
  • Singularities (1990)
    • Articulation of Sound Forms in Time
    • Thorow
    • Scattering as Behavior Towards Risk
  • Silence Wager Stories (1992)
  • The Nonconformist’s Memorial (1993)
    • The Nonconformist’s Memorial
    • Silence Wager Stories
    • A Bibliography of the King’s Book, or Eikon Basilike
    • Melville’s Marginalia
  • The Birth-mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American literary History (1993)
    • Submarginalia
    • Incloser
    • Quasi-marginalia
    • The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
    • These Flames and Generosities of the Heart
    • Talisman interview with Edward Foster
  • Interview with Lynn Keller (1995)
  • Frame Structures (1996)
    • Hinge Picture
    • Chanting at the Crystal Sea
    • Cabbage Gardens
    • Secret History of the Dividing Line
  • Pierce-Arrow (1997)
  • Deux Et (1998)
  • Bed Hangings I (2001)
  • Bed Hangings II (2002)
  • Kidnapped (2002)
  • The Midnight (2003)
    • Bed Hangings I + II
    • Scare Quotes I + II
    • Kidnapped
  • Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007)
  • My Emily Dickinson (2007 reissue of 1985 publication)

[edit] Influences

Her main literary influences are Dickinson, Charles Olson and early Puritan writers like Cotton Mather, as well as minimalist artists such as Agnes Martin and historians such as Richard Slotkin. The link between these is New England, and Howe can be viewed as a New England poet in her sense of new possibilities and preference for an economy of means. Recent writings, including Pierce-Arrow (1999), reflect an ongoing dialogue and engagement with the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce.

[edit] Other Activities

Howe spent some time in Dublin, where she worked as an actor and assistant stage director with the Gate Theatre. She paints and has worked as a radio producer. Since 1989 she taught English at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York until she retired in October, 2006.

[edit] Some Critical Works on Howe's Writing

  • BACK, Rachel Tzvia. Led By Language: The Poetry and Poetics of Susan Howe. Tuscaloosa, AL & London, (University of Alabama Press, 2002).
  • CROWN Kathleen. « Documentary Memory and Textual Agency: H.D. and Susan Howe. » How2, v. 1, n° 3, Feb. 2000.
  • DALY Lew. Swallowing the Scroll: Late in a Prophetic Tradition with the poetry of Susan Howe and John Taggart. Buffalo, NY, M Press, 19994.
  • DAVIDSON Michael. « Palimptexts: Postmodern Poetry and the Material Text. » Postmodern Genres. Marjorie PERLOFF, ed. Norman, OK and London, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988/89. (Coll.: n° 5 of Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory.) pp. 75-95.
  • Difficulties. « The Difficulties Interview. » issue dedicated to Susan Howe. The Difficulties, 3.2 ,1989. pp. 17-27.
  • DUPLESSIS Rachel Blau. « Our law /vocables /of shape or sound : The work of Susan Howe. » How(ever) alerts( v.1 n° 4, May 1984.
  • FOSTER Ed. « An Interview with Susan Howe. » Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, n° 4: issue of this magazine is on Susan Howe, 1990. pp. 14-38.
  • HOWARD W. Scott. "Literal/Littoral Crossings: Re-Articulating Hope Atherton’s Story After Susan Howe’s Articulation of Sound Forms in Time." Water: Resources and Discourses. Ed. Justin Scott Coe and W. Scott Howard. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 6.3 (2006): [1].
  • HOWARD W. Scott. “Teaching, How/e?: not per se.” Denver Quarterly 35.2 (2000): 81-93.
  • HOWARD W. Scott. “‘writing ghost writing’: A Discursive Poetics of History; or, Howe’s hau in ‘a bibliography of the king’s book; or, eikon basilike’.” Talisman 14 (1995): 108-30.
  • Lynn. Forms of Expansion: recent Long Poems by Women, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1997.
  • MA Ming-Qian. « Articulating the Inarticulate: Singularities and the Countermethod in Susan Howe. » Contemporary Literature n° 36 (3) 1995.
  • NAYLOR Paul. Poetic Investigations: Singing the Holes In History. Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 1999.
  • NICHOLLS Peter. « Unsettling the Wilderness: Susan Howe and American History. » Contemporary Literature, V.37, n° 4, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. pp. 586-601.
  • PERLOFF Marjorie. « Against Transparency : From the Radiant Cluster to the Word as Such.» & « How it means: Making Poetic Sense in Media Society. » in book: Radical Artifice. Chicago et Londres, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  • PERLOFF Marjorie. « Language Poetry and the Lyric Subject: Ron Silliman's Albany, Susan Howe's Buffalo. » Critical Inquiry, n° 25, Spring 1999. pp 405-434.
  • PERLOFF Marjorie. Poetic License: Essays on Modernist and Postmodernist Lyric. 1990.
  • QUARTERMAIN Peter, Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukovsky to Susan Howe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  • RANKINE Claudia & Juliana Spahr. American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press, 2002. pp. 308-352.
  • REINFELD Linda. « Susan Howe: Prisms » Language Poetry: Writing as Rescue. 1992. pp.120-147.
  • SWENSEN Cole. « Against the Limits of Language: The Geometries of Anne-Marie Albiach and Susan Howe. » in Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing By Women. Mary Margaret SLOAN, dd. Jersey City, New Jersey, Talisman House Publishers, 1998. pp. 630-641
  • ZIAREK Krzysztof. Chapters dedicated in part or in their entirety to Howe's writing: “7. “A Sounding of Uncertainty”: Susan Howe’s Gendering of History” (pp 263-293) “Introduction: The Avant-Garde as a Critique of Experience” (pp 3-32) and “Beyond the Negative: An Afterword on the Avant-Garde” (294-300) in The Historicity of Experience: Modernity, the Avant-Garde, and the Event. Evanston, Illinois, USA: Northwestern University Press, 2001. (Coll: Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies)

[edit] External links

  • Susan Howe Homepage @ the EPC
  • Susan Howe Page @ Modern American Poetry
  • Jon THOMPSON's “Interview with Susan Howe” from Free Verse: A journal of contemporary poetry and poetics, 2005. at: [2]
  • Susan SCHULTZ's « Exaggerated History. » Postmodern Culture. v. 4, n° 2, Jan. 1994. online at: [www.english.upenn.edu]
  • Cole SWENSEN's « To Writewithize (as in "to hybridize" to "harmonize" to "ionize" etc.)» American Letters & Commentary, Winter 2001. at: [3]
  • Cole SWENSEN's « Seeing reading: Susan Howe's Moving Margins. » Conférence: Louisville Conference on Modern Literature. April 1999. at: [4]
  • Brian MCHALE's « HER William Shakespeare: On the interventionist poetics of Susan Howe (in the male literary cannon) » Conference on contemporary poetry: Poetry and the Public Sphere. Rutger's University, avril 24-27, 1997. at: [5]
  • METCALF Paul. "Untitled: on Hope Atherton's Wandernings." on Modern American Poetry Website: [6]
  • Bruce Campbell and Susan Howe, On Susan Howe and History, Modern American Poetry
  • INTERVIEW in FRENCH with Omar BERRADA. « the space between: Poésie, cinéma, histoire. Entretien avec Susan Howe. » publié dans Vacarme, n° 32, été 2005. Disponible sur : [7]