Susan Howe

Susan Howe (born June 10, 1937) is an American poet, scholar, essayist, and critic, who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among other poetry movements."Susan Howe"
The Poetry Foundation, Retrieved 24 December 2014. Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands traditional notions of genre (fiction, essay, prose and poetry). Many of Howe's books are layered with historical, mythical, and other references, often presented in an unorthodox format. Her work contains lyrical echoes of sound, and yet is not pinned down by a consistent metrical pattern or a conventional poetic rhyme scheme.

Howe received the 2017 Robert Frost Medal awarded by the Poetry Society of America, and the 2011 Bollingen Prize in American Poetry. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Personal life

Howe was born on June 10, 1937, in Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in nearby Cambridge. Her mother, Mary Manning, was an Irish playwright and acted for Dublin's Gate Theatre. Manning was a close friend of Samuel Beckett, with whom she had a brief affair a year before Susan was born; this led to a rumour that Beckett might be her biological father, although Susan Howe has stated that DNA tests show Beckett was not her father. Her father Mark De Wolfe Howe, was a professor at Harvard Law School and became the official biographer of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Her aunt Helen Howe was a monologuist and novelist. Howe has two younger sisters, Fanny Howe, who is also a poet; and Helen Howe Braider. Howe graduated from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in 1961.

Howe married painter Harvey Quaytman in 1961; they had met at the art school. They separated when their daughter was young. Howe and her daughter lived with sculptor David von Schlegell for several years before the couple married. They were together until his death in 1992. The widowed poet married again, to Peter Hewitt Hare, a philosopher and professor at the University of Buffalo. He died in January 2008.

Howe has two grown children, painter R.H. Quaytman, and writer Mark von Schlegell. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut.

Publications

Howe is an 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), ''Pierce-Arrow'' (1999), ''Bed Hangings'' with Susan Bee (2001),''Souls of the Labadie Track,'' (2007) ''Frolic Architecture,'' (2010), "Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of Archives" (2014) and ''That This'' (2010), and three books of criticism, ''The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History'' (1993), "The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope Poems" (2013) and ''My Emily Dickinson'' (1985). Howe began publishing poetry with ''Hinge Picture'' in 1974 and was initially received as a part of the amorphous grouping of experimental writers known as the language poets-writers such as Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews, Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Barrett Watten, and Ron Silliman. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry anthology '' In the American Tree,'' and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Poetry.

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

Other activities

After graduating from high school, Howe spent a year in Dublin as an apprentice at the Gate Theatre. After graduating from the Boston Museum School in 1961, she moved to New York, where she painted. In 1975, she began to produce a series of poetry programs for WBAI/Pacifica Radio. In 1988 she had her first visiting professorship in English at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, becoming a full professor and core faculty of the Poetics Program in 1991, later being appointed Capen Chair and Distinguished Professor. She retired in 2006. Recently, Howe has held the following positions: Distinguished Fellow, Stanford Institute of the Humanities; faculty, Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of Utah, and Wesleyan University (English Department's Distinguished Visiting Writer, 2010–11).

Awards

Susan Howe was awarded with the American Book Awards organized by the Before Columbus Foundation in both 1981 and 1986. "She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999 and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000." She was the fall 2009 Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2009, she was awarded a Berlin Prize fellowship. In 2011, Howe was awarded the Yale Bollingen Prize in American Poetry.

Bibliography

Poetry Collections

* ''The Europe of Trusts'' (1990, Sun and Moon)
* ''Singularities'' (1990, Wesleyan University Press)
* ''The Nonconformist’s Memorial'' (1993, New Directions)
* ''Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979'' (1996, New Directions)
* ''Pierce-Arrow'' (1999, New Directions)
* ''The Midnight'' (2003, New Directions)
* ''Souls of the Labadie Tract'' (2007, New Directions)
* ''That This'' (2010, New Directions)
* ''Debths'' (2017, New Directions)
* ''Concordance'' (2020, New Directions)
* ''Penitential Cries'' (2025, New Directions)

Chapbooks, Pamphlets, and Artist's Books

* ''Hinge Picture'' (1974, Telephone Books)
* ''Chanting at the Crystal Sea'' (1975, Fire Exit)
* ''The Western Borders'' (1976, Tuumba Press)
* ''Secret History of the Dividing Line'' (1978, Telephone Books)
* ''Cabbage Gardens'' (1979, Fathom Press)
* ''The Liberties'' (1980, Loon Books)
* ''Pythagorean Silence'' (1982, Montemora)
* ''Defenestration of Prague'' (1983, The Kulchur Foundation)
* ''Incloser'' (1985, The Weaselsleeves Press)
* ''Heliopathy'' (1986, Pushcart)
* ''Articulation of Sound Forms in Time'' (1987, Awede)
* ''A Bibliography of the King's Book or, Eikon Basilike'' (1989, Paradigm Press)
* ''The Nonconformist's Memorial'' (1992, The Grenfell Press)
* ''Silence Wages Stories'' (1992, Paradigm Press)
* ''Bed Hangings I'' (2001, Granary Books)
* ''Bed Hangings II'' (2002, Coracle Books)
* ''Kidnapped'' (2002, Coracle Books)
* ''Poems from a Pioneer Museum'' (2009, Coracle Books)
* ''Frolic Architecture'' (2010, The Grenfell Press)
* ''Sorting Facts, or Nineteen Ways of Looking at Marker'' (2013, New Directions)
* ''Tom Tit Tot'' (2014, The Grenfell Press)
* ''Concordance'' (2019, The Grenfell Press)

Essays and Criticism

* ''My Emily Dickinson'' (1985, North Atlantic Books)
* ''The Birth-mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History'' (1993, Wesleyan University Press)
* ''Introduction to 'The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope Poems (2013, New Directions)
* ''Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of Archives'' (2014, New Directions)
* ''The Quarry: Essays'' (2015, New Directions)

Exhibitions

* ''Tom Tit Tot'', Yale Union, 2013.

Some critical works on Howe's writing

* Back, Rachel Tzvia. ''Led By Language: The Poetry and Poetics of Susan Howe''. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
* Collis, Stephen. ''Through Words of Others: Susan Howe and Anarcho-Scholasticism''. Victoria, BC: English Literary Studies Editions, 2006.
* 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, 1999.
* Davidson, Michael. "Palimptexts: Postmodern Poetry and the Material Text", ''Postmodern Genres''. Marjorie Perloff, ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988/89. (Coll.: n° 5 of Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory.) pp. 75–95.
* "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)'' v.1 n° 4, May 1984.
* Foster, Ed. "An Interview with Susan Howe", ''Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics'', n° 4: special issue 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)


* 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.
* Joyce, Elisabeth. ''"The Small Space of a Pause": Susan Howe's Poetry and the Spaces Between''. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2010.
* Keller, 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'' v.36 n° 3, 1995, pp. 466–489.
* Montgomery, Will. ''The Poetry of Susan Howe: History, Theology, Authority''. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2010.
* 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, 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 ''Radical Artifice'', Chicago: 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''. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990.
* Quartermain, Peter. ''Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukovsky to Susan Howe''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
* Rankine, Claudia, and Spahr, Juliana. ''American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language''. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002.
* Reinfeld, Linda M. ''Language Poetry: Writing as Rescue''. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
* 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, ed. Jersey City, NJ: Talisman House Publishers, 1998. pp. 630–641
* Ziarek, Krzysztof. ''The Historicity of Experience: Modernity, the Avant-Garde, and the Event''. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001.

References

External links

Susan Howe Homepage @ the EPC


MSS 0201
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
* Susan Howe audio a




* Susan Howe a
the Poetry Foundation
* Jon THOMPSON's “Interview with Susan Howe” from ''Free Verse: A journal of contemporary poetry and poetics'', 2005. at




of Susan Howe's collaboration with David Grubbs by Ben Lerner
* Susan SCHULTZ's « Exaggerated History. » ''Postmodern Culture''. v. 4, n° 2, Jan. 1994. online at: ww.english.upenn.edu* Cole SWENSEN's « To Writewithize (as in "to hybridize" to "harmonize" to "ionize" etc.)» ''American Letters & Commentary'', Winter 2001. at

* Cole SWENSEN's « Seeing reading: Susan Howe's Moving Margins. » Conference: Louisville Conference on Modern Literature. April 1999. at

* Brian MCHALE's « HER William Shakespeare: On the interventionist poetics of Susan Howe (in the male literary canon) » Conference on contemporary poetry: Poetry and the Public Sphere. Rutger's University, April 24–27, 1997. at

* METCALF Paul. "Untitled: on Hope Atherton's Wandernings." on Modern American Poetry Website


* 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

* hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.howesu, Susan Howe Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howe, Susan
1937 births
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American painters
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women painters
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American painters
21st-century American poets
21st-century American women painters
21st-century American women writers
American Book Award winners
American contemporary painters
American satirists
American women satirists
American women academics
American women essayists
American women non-fiction writers
American women poets
Berlin Prize recipients
Bollingen Prize recipients
Epic poets
Language poets
Literacy and society theorists
Living people
Mass media theorists
Modernist women writers
Painters from Massachusetts
American postmodern writers
Princeton University faculty
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni
Surrealist writers
University at Buffalo alumni
University at Buffalo faculty
University of Chicago faculty
University of Utah faculty
Wesleyan University faculty
Writers about activism and social change
Poets from Boston
Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts