Susan Howe Summary

In a prologue to The Europe of Trusts (1990) Howe writes of her desire to speak for those who have been silenced by history: "I wish I could tenderly lift, from the dark side of history, voices that a... Read more

In the following essay, Butterick examines Howe's body of work and poetic technique. I've not been more intrigued in recent years with how a poet composes than I have been with (the rhym... Read more

In the following review, Selinger discusses My Emily Dickinson, showing the connections it has to The Birth-mark, The Nonconformist's Memorial, and Howe's earlier poetic works. You can s... Read more

In the following essay, Nicholls explores Howe's critiques of American history as well as the treatment of women in historical narratives. The growing critical interest in Susan Howe's p... Read more

In the following essay, Williams analyzes Howe's treatment of literary history in her poem “Melville's Marginalia.” Susan Howe's most recent work, The Birth-mark: Un... Read more

In the following review, Schultz offers a positive assessment of The Birth-mark, noting that although the work requires considerable reader involvement, that the “effort is more than compensate... Read more

In the following essay, Marsh examines Howe's concept of self and subjectivity as evidenced in her body of work. The recent publication by New Directions of Susan Howe's previously uncol... Read more

In the following review, the critic provides a positive assessment of Pierce-Arrow. With her first book of new poems in six years, Howe further solidifies her reputation as one of North America'... Read more

In the following excerpt, Conoley discusses Howe's use of language in Singularities. The impulse in Susan Howe's ninth book of poetry, Singularities, is also revisionist. She, too, uses ... Read more

In the following essay, Reinfeld explores the poetic vision and use of language in Howe's poetry. If the poetry of vision is concerned less with the revelation of light than with the disintegra... Read more

In the following favorable review of The Birth-mark and The Nonconformist's Memorial, Ramke argues that the two books allow readers “an opportunity to read across boundaries and to allow... Read more

In the following essay, Taggart discusses the importance of language play in Pythagorean Silence. Play, first and last, is the sovereign principle of composition and the source of all our closest atte... Read more

In the following essay, Crown underscores Howe's “iconoclastic approach to lyric convention and traditional historiography” and asserts that her “serial lyrics testify not ... Read more

In the following essay, Simpson reveals a central paradox in Howe's verse-empiricism and textuality, and views that paradox as one of the major strengths in her work. To articulate the past his... Read more

In the following essay, Nicholls discusses the wide-ranging references and connections that occur in Howe's Pierce-Arrow and provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of the poem. It is approp... Read more

In the following essay, Quartermain considers the defining characteristics of Howe's poetry through a reading of her eight-poem sequence “Scattering as Behavior toward Risk.” How ... Read more

In the following essay, Freitag discusses the lack of attention from feminist literary critics to Howe's verse and underscores the feminist themes in A Bibliography of the King's Book, o... Read more

In the following essay, Palattella provides an analysis of Howe's poetics, focusing on her utilization of historical, cultural, and literary elements in her verse. What is the end to insects th... Read more

In the following review, Johnston asserts that the poems collected in Frame Structures exhibit “full-blown poetic imagination, suggesting a remarkable coherence to Howe's oeuvre.”... Read more