Since Susan Howe came to read last week, I’ve been thinking that I really must immediately read everything she’s ever written starting now go. Before hearing her read I’d read her major works: The Europe of Trusts (which I’m planning on re-reading because it was almost a decade ago I read it); My Emily Dickinson. Recently, you’ll remember perhaps, I read That This. So I went to my local friendly university library and got every book they had of hers. Which it turns out was only Singularities. So while I’m waiting for the others to come in through interlibrary loan, I devoured this book.A very slim volume in three sections. Triptych, again. Challenging, as most of her work is, but rewarding. I find myself having to really slow down, read and re-read passages, engage them with different minds. My listening mind, my tactile mind, my unfocused mind, my graphic mind. One of the things I love most about this book is that the first two sections have an introduction talking about the intent, and a little bit of the process, of the following work. The prose is far from explanatory, though, it feels like the necessary entry-point. “You have to know this in order to begin.” I love that apparatus included unobtrusively. It’s not an explication, not an explanation, but a positioning. You are here, in relation to the poem. Now go there. Not directions but a map.[Read the whole thing: http://alluringlyshort.com/2014/02/05... ]
