Ada Verdun Howell (19 July 1902 – 1981) was an Australian writer and poet. Born in Beaufort, Victoria, on her father's sheep property, she was educated at

Ruyton Girls' School , motto_translation = Upright and Faithful , established = 1878 , type = Independent, single-sex, day school , denomination = Non-denominational , key_people = , chairman ...

. Her sister was the artist

Valma Howell Valma Ondine Howell (15 June 1896 – 16 December 1979), was an Australian artist of pastoral watercolours of western Victoria and actor. Early years Valma Ondine Howell was born in Beaufort, where she was to spend most of her life. The first 14 ...

. She lived in New York in the latter part of her life where she wrote most of her most famous works. Her early writing, which she later eschewed as adolescent, showed considerable skill utilising

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples o ...

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s of her childhood in Western Victoria. She is best known for her later writing, much praised for its great formal and feminine qualities, as an early sound poet. Her most influential works include the strangely disquieting ''Dookerimbud, Monmot and Neemini'' and the later ''Exit Strategies''. The last part of her life was apparently spent in much economic hardship and she died virtually unknown in her own country.

New York life

By the time she was in her late thirties Ada had abandoned

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, where she was surrounded by what she felt were stuffy and provincial relations, for New York and the bohemian life, where she was soon surrounded by an artistic life and freedom she was unable to experience in Australia. Her first husband, Adrian Morten, an undistinguished writer and critic, by whom she had her two children, does not appear to have been very supportive. The marriage, like most of Ada's later relationships, floated on a tide of

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and was marked by spectacular rows. After Morten's sudden death she consoled herself with many lovers; "once I got Mr Morten out of my life I felt like a new woman," she told a close friend

Harold Norse Harold Norse (July 6, 1916, New York City – June 8, 2009, San Francisco) was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse wa ...

. In her forties she stumbled into her métier, modern poetry. In the early 1940s she was taken under the wing of

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with ...

who was to provide both financial and intellectual encouragement. In the decades that followed she became a close friend to poet and beat

. Her last years were a slow decline due to alcoholism. Little is known of her last years and she died of unknown causes in 1981.

Juvenilia

Her earliest work ''Poems'' is not considered to be of much literary value, however it does display an affection for the sound of words and an awareness of other languages other than English. An example is the poem ''A single body of water'': :In the dim light of the crescent moon, :I strode the high hills of Ercildoune. :Through the lakes and the waters' song :Soft words they whispered 'Buninyong'

Early work

Her professional career begins with ''Anamorphosis'' where she goes beyond the exterior world of landscape and the body and she begins to explore the interior universe of love and selfhood. The poem exhibits a new awareness of the world around her: :All the same, my desire had taught me :An object lesson. :He was a sceptic, I was an enthusiast. :He analysed, I synthesized. :He dealt with proofs, I with questions of faith. :He was, in short, :An historian. :I couldn't help being :A pilgrim; :But I knew now I must be :As dispassionate pilgrim :As possible.

Concrete poetry

Her best known work is the controversial ''Exit Strategies''. This prose/poem cycle was praised by E. E. Cummings as "poetry as pure energy...just in time for atomic age", but similarly condemned by others for the same qualities. The famous 400 stanza, ''Eanie Meanie'' poem: :Eanie Meanie Minie Meanie :Mo Mo Moonie Minie :Eanie Moonie Moonie Meanie :Oonie Eanie Moonie Me :.... has few andecedents in the English language: language was to her pure sound, its meaning lost in our collective past

Bibliography

*''Poems''. by A.V. Howell; Melbourne : Massina, 1931. *''Anamorphosis''. by A.V. Howell; Melbourne : Massina, 1937
''Dookerimbud, Monmot and Neemini''.
by A.Verdun Howell; Mooramong Press 1938, Ballarat. *''Exit Strategies''. by A.Verdun Howell; A.V.Howell, New York City 1950 *''A Dialogue on Our Obscurity''. by A.Verdun Howell in ''Avalanche'' 2 (Winter) 1970

References

*''Of Sheep and Men: a History of Skipton''. by Notman, G.Claude. Skipton, Victoria Claude Notman, 1981 *''Modern poets on modern poetry'': edited by James Scully. London : Fontana/Collins, 1966. *''Tyers and text:an analysis of the early poetry of A.Verdon Howell and the journals of Charles Tyers''. by Murray S.Gavin Victorian Historical Journal 1985 54(2):p34-41 *''Memoirs of a bastard angel''. by Harold Norse. New York : Morrow, 1989. *''"Taped interview with Harold Norse in his studio in Manhattan, September 1972."'' Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Inst., Washington, D.C. Reprinted in 'Artists in their own words' by Paul Cummings New York: St Martin's, 1979. {{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Ada Verdun 1902 births 1981 deaths Sound poets People from Melbourne 20th-century Australian poets Australian women poets