The Poetry of Susan Howe: History, Theology, Authority (Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics)

The Poetry of Susan Howe provides a comprehensive survey of the major works of one of America's foremost contemporary poets. The book describes the relationship between poetic form and the various configurations of history, religious thought, and authority in Howe's writing. Will Montgomery argues that her highly opaque texts reflect the resistance that the past offers to contemporary investigation. Addressing lyric, literary history, collage and visual poetics, The Poetry of Susan Howe is a lucid and persuasive investigation of the volatile movements of this extraordinary body of work. "The Poetry of Susan Howe provides a comprehensive survey of the major works of one of America's foremost contemporary poets. The book describes the relationship between poetic form and the various configurations of history, religious thought and authority in the writing. Howe's poetry, in this account, is a means of reflecting the resistance that the past offers to contemporary investigation - the effacement, and not the recovery, of history's victims is discernible in the contours of these highly opaque texts. Addressing lyric, literary history and visual poetics, The Poetry of Susan Howe is a lucid and persuasive investigation of the volatile movements of this extraordinary body of work"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xxv The Maternal Disinheritance....Pages 1-26 The Ghost of the Father....Pages 27-53 Susan Howe’s Renaissance....Pages 55-78 The Poetics of American Space....Pages 79-111 Enthusiasm, Telepathy, and Immediacy....Pages 113-143 The Late Lyric....Pages 145-166 Back Matter....Pages 167-219