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Summary: Marie knows Howe to write amazing poetry...
Review: "Anything I've ever tried to keep by force I've lost."
Marie Howe captures the gut feelings of living in her striking book of poetry. The pain of losing her brother to AIDs resonates through the later poems, while the earlier focus on the manic emotions of childhood. Even people uncomfortable with poetry will enjoy reading the universal memories she's translated so touchingly into the written word. This is not esoteric verse: it is clean, familiar, moving moments of time frozen under the glass of a copyright. Howe expresses just what the living do as a melody that swoops and soars. She also underscores her poetry with a deep harmony indicative of the void in life, a hole in one's heart that was once devoted to a loved one.
"But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: I am living, I remember you."
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Summary: This collection will change the direction of American poetry
Review: Each of these poems chronicles the luminescence and the darkness of every day life. This collection also embodies a spiritual core, one that speaks to the complexity of the end of this century. Grace and forgiveness are earned through the unrelenting honesty of these lines. It is the sacred in these poems which will make it the collection and Howe the poet of our time. The discipline of Howe's writing, of her thinking, require a delibrateness of craft. Long lines and short bring the conversation of the everyday to a precision often missed in contemporary American poetry. This collection will speak to so many people: writers, those who rarely read to those who would never read poetry, to the finest craftsmen, and anyone who seeks the sacred in life.
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Summary: Thrilling poetry.
Review: How frequently does beautiful poetry thrill? The title poem, What the Living Do, will make me cry each time I read it alound -- not only for the sentiment, of course, but for the language. And I have cited "Practicing" in my own work. I look for this in bookstores to give to people as gifts, but only the more sophisticated independents seem to carry it. Too bad.
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Summary: Read this heartbreaking and beautiful book
Review: I have been carrying around a copy of the title poem from this book ever since I saw it in the Atlantic years ago - and waiting and waiting for Howe's second book to come out. It's worth the wait - a chilling and stunning and beautiful collection of poems, written so straightforwardly, as if Howe were just talking to herself as she walked down the street, or to us over coffee. It takes very hard work to make poetry sound so open and easy, and the style is exactly right for the seriousness of her subject(s): death, child abuse, love. Marie Howe is able to hold the pain in her heart up to the light, and is generous enough to let us stand there for a while with her.
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Summary: Just wonderful poetry from a wonderful person.
Review: I met her at St. John Fisher College and heard her read. She is a truly wonderful and interesting person. Hearing it from her mouth makes these poems even more meaningful. Her pain and sincerity are a true breath of fresh air from the stuffy and meaningless poems from the classics, these so called masterpieces. Meaning something is what makes these poems absolutely great.
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Summary: I just don't see the attraction
Review: I've heard so much talk about Marie Howe--the next wave, some have said. I read this book and I don't get it at all. A couple intersting poems, but in the end the book did little for me.
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Summary: "Without irony or condescension"
Review: It's rare that a book of contemporary poetry strikes a chord so deep. Howe's, "What the Living Do" is, fortunately, one of those books. Her poetry is naked with emotion and speaks clearly "without irony or condescension." I found "My Dead Friends" to be one of the best. Buy this book. Take it with you on a walk. Sit outside and read in one sitting. You won't be disappointed.
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Summary: Going beyond grief
Review: Marie Howe goes beyond grief in her poems. If you, like me, needed a pull from grieving into the world of the living, read her book. It moves, it breathes, it goes beyond to a place that lives in joy even in suffering.Marie Howe is a teacher I have not studied with, but she teaches and I would love to study with her. This is a poem I wrote that suffers and how I would like to write beyond this. Warrant Correction When our dentist said -- it looks from the x-rays like your canines Will break through too high too forward for a nice smile,
Mom defended your crooked mough.
But you said -- I want them pulled. I want braces. For you trained teeth
Equaled the perfection
Of throwing A ball from a pitcher's mound straight to a catcher's mitt,
It equaled the joy of your friends and me watching with our knuckles
Rooted in the diamond steel of a chain-linked fence, anticipating
The hook of a pitch only you could release fast and clean. You are in prison, At the basin I dip
My face, as eyetooth to tongue and believe
You are not gone.
Rating:
Summary: Going beyond grief
Review: Marie Howe goes beyond grief in her poems. If you, like me, needed a pull from grieving into the world of the living, read her book. It moves, it breathes, it goes beyond to a place that lives in joy even in suffering. Marie Howe is a teacher I have not studied with, but she teaches and I would love to study with her. This is a poem I wrote that suffers and how I would like to write beyond this. Warrant Correction When our dentist said -- it looks from the x-rays like your canines Will break through too high too forward for a nice smile,
Mom defended your crooked mough.
But you said -- I want them pulled. I want braces. For you trained teeth
Equaled the perfection
Of throwing A ball from a pitcher's mound straight to a catcher's mitt,
It equaled the joy of your friends and me watching with our knuckles
Rooted in the diamond steel of a chain-linked fence, anticipating
The hook of a pitch only you could release fast and clean. You are in prison, At the basin I dip
My face, as eyetooth to tongue and believe
You are not gone.
Rating:
Summary: very uneven collection
Review: Marie Howe is a poet you want to get to know. The surrealism in her poetry is held together with ribbons of reality and warmth. She knows what she is talking about and Death is a spirit and nothing to be afraid of. "The Promise" was my personal favorite. In all her poems she allows you to see beyond the window, into the outside and into the woods of the soul. Her poetry will wake up the dreams with the kiss of a single word. When you read the poems, they become you.
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