Customer Reviews

What the Living Do: Poems

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

People have often told me that hearing the word "poetry" sets off high school nightmares of having to "interpret" or decode literature. Such reactions never cease to disappoint me, considering everyone first experiences language through poetry, the playfulness of words. The innate melodies and rhythms that those first tunes bring to life in our early years are revived in Marie Howe's second book of poetry "What the Living Do". Striving for relentless clarity of language and image, Howe has written a painful celebration of "what the living do" after the death of a loved one. These verses, however, are by no means juvenile, confronting head-on the life and death of her brother John as well as the death of poet Jane Kenyon. And amid the suffering Howe's poetry insists there is room for love, for making love. Whatever loss that the poet endures because of her brother's death is countered (complemented perhaps) by her ability to be intimate and inexorably human amid the living. The poems are powerfully memorable, pushing for an aesthetic that is personal yet connective, accessible yet multi-layered. Writing in a language that is uniquely hers and yet entirely ours for the taking, Marie Howe's "What the Living Do" instructs us on how she has found that both praise and misery can undoubtedly inhabit the same swirling space.

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.

"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."

This collection of poetry, reads like a novel in which Howe utilizes first person, present tense domestic narratives. What impressed me was the immediacy of these poems. The organic form of one long line followed by a shorter line creates a dramatic effect of a leading breath. These highly accessible poems have an epistemological and cognitive bent: Howe doesn't muddle her readers with loose tangents and inconsequential associations. She portrays amazingly vivid moments without overstating. In a succinct manner, the poet describes volumes in concrete language. The eloquency of her poetry is its simplicity.

The poems in the first section examine what we do as children to unveil our new world. We learn from our older siblings (The Boy); we learn to ask, seek, and sometimes demand help (Sixth Grade); we experience and experiment (Practicing); we liken our world to the fantastical (The Mother and In The Movies); we come to understand the value of being a confidant (Beth); we distinguish the difference between the public and the private (The Fruit Cellar); and we learn how to control our environment (The Game). These are seemingly personal anecdotes for the poet but which have universal meaning. Literal and figurative parallelism is applied in The Attic where the brother is, "building the imaginary building/on the drawing board...." And later, when his sister needs him emotionally, "he's building a world..." a safe haven for her. These moments are bittersweet, savory, palpable.

The second section confronts death and dying. When the speaker thinks her brother has died, the poet uses repetition to create tension and frustration: "and we couldn't wake him,/we couldn't wake him...." In The Last Time, Howe concisely creates an image of wealth and purity with a discussion about mortality (when the sick brother asks the sister to face her own death). My favorite poem in this section is The Grave - where Howe's a sensory master. The grave is symbolic of what we take, what we leave, and what we do in the middle. Trekking in stiletto heels from the grave after the family has proceeded ahead of her, the speaker notes, "ovals and dots, fat exclamation marks,/walking inside the steps of my brothers and sisters."

This third section regards the speaker as an adult dealing with loss and love. Contemplative with self-awareness to the highest degree, Howe's poetry is breathless and soft, with minimal exposition. An example f this is in the poem Late Morning: "and we sat like that for a few minutes, without saying much of anything,/my cheek pressed lightly/against his cheek...." Howe reminds us that so much depends on a moment. At times her poems lead us to certain revelations: in Watching Television, Howe writes, "Anything I've ever tried to keep by force I've lost.." In Reunion, she uses a fresh analogy for two people struggling to remain afloat in love, "the dripping of the oars/and the knock and creak of them moving in the rusty locks."

Howe works under a high level of consciousness that she gifts to her readers. She refuses to spoon-feed us; she leads us to water but doesn't force the imbibe. Howe evokes a whole gamut of feelings with her precise diction and her purity of voice. In the last section, her title poem is an honest look at minutiae and being so engrossed with it until you finally force yourself to take a moment, take a breath, and remember.... And that's just what this book begs.

By far, a powerfully present and celebratory collection of poems. With resoluteness and clarity, Howe has produced a book of poems that's illuminating and proud. This, from the title poem: "...What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want/ whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss - we want more and more and then more of it./ 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 so deep/ for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:/ I am living, I remember you."

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.

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.

Marie Howe is a wonderfully talented, artistic writer. This book will touch the heart of any reader. It is honest, sincere, cuts right to the soul. I recommend the book to anyone, but to young women in particular. Marie Howe's poetry is like a mirror where we can look into ourselves and know that we are not alone, that we can be true to ourselves, we can accept, forgive, love and move forward feeling cleansed. In her artistic poetic journaling, we can find a clearer vision of ourselves and the meaning of life. I intend to share this book with my dearest friends, it makes a lovely gift.

The value of life haunted by those who have lost it: simple, grounded, and devastatingly beautiful. This book is one of the very few things I believe in. I cannot praise the fierce humanity of Howe highly enough...

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.

I was actually alerted to this book after a composer who had actually set one of the poems as a song. I knew I had to read it right away after he told us about it. So when I returned home, I bought it. I couldn't put it down. I've since read it several times and everytime it makes me see the little things we take for granted in our lives. The connection she makes with the reader is absolutely amazing. Buddy is one the best poems I've ever read.