Marie Howe's retrospective reviewed in The Guardian
American poet Marie Howe's poetry is being published for the first time in the UK in her new retrospective What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems, published by Bloodaxe Books in November 2024. Marie launched the book at Bloodaxe's joint online reading and discussion event on 8 November 2024 - scroll down for details.
What the Earth Seemed to Say brings together more than three decades of profound, luminous poetry from one of America’s most daring and courageous poets, and opens with twenty new poems. This retrospective draws from each of her four collections – including Magdalene (2017), a spiritual and sensual exploration of contemporary womanhood, and What the Living Do (1997), a haunting archive of personal loss. Whether speaking in the voice of the goddess Persephone or thinking about ageing while walking the dog, Howe is ‘a light-bearer, an extraordinary poet of our human sorrow and ordinary joy’ (Dorianne Laux).
GUARDIAN POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE
The Guardian, Poem of the Week, online Monday 30 December 2024
Carol Rumens discussed a poem from American poet Marie Howe’s new retrospective What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems in her online Poem of the Week column in The Guardian on 30 December. She featured the poem ‘Hurry’, which she described as ‘an example of Howe’s skill at turning an everyday anecdote into a parable’.
‘What the Earth Seemed to Say is a substantial selection of work, ranging from The Good Thief, published in the 1980s, to a group of recent poems from 2023. Howe is a writer well known for exploring Christian themes from innovative modern-dress perspectives, as in her 2017 collection Magdalene.’ – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/30/poem-of-the-week-hurry-by-marie-howe
POETRY BOOKS OF THE YEAR FEATURE
Sunday Independent, Books: The critics’ cut, Poetry Books of the Year, Sunday 8 December 2024
Paul Perry chose What the Earth Seemed to Say for his poetry books of the year feature in Ireland’s Sunday Independent’s books of the year as chosen by the paper’s critics.
‘What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems by Marie Howe is a compelling compendium of the poet’s piercingly steady gaze at the painful truths of our lives with poems rich in forthright lyric insight.’ – Paul Perry, Sunday Independent (Poetry Books of the Year 2024)
In print only.
REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Saturday 2 November 2024
An excellent review of What the Earth Seemed to Say was included in Jennifer Lee Tsai's best recent poetry round-up for November 2024 in The Guardian.
'This rich and luminous compilation draws from four previous collections, including the hauntingly elegiac What the Living Do (1997), a tribute to Howe’s brother, who died as a result of Aids, and Magdalene (2017), an intense exploration of womanhood. It opens with a bounteous selection of new work. [...] Howe’s poems carry an emotional depth and transcendent simplicity. There is a simultaneous earthliness and spirituality in her musings on the metaphysical revelations of the divine, the sacred and the eternal.' – Jennifer Lee Tsai, The Guardian
In print in The Guardian's Saturday magazine on 2 November 2024. Available online here.
ONLINE LAUNCH EVENT
Friday 8 November 2024, 7pm GMT
Online launch reading by Marie Howe, Philip Gross and David Constantine
Online launch reading by Marie Howe, Philip Gross and David Constantine, celebrating the publication of our new November titles. All three poets read live and discussed their work with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
Now available on YouTube.
MARIE HOWE READS FROM HER COLLECTION MAGDALENE
Marie Howe: Magdalene
In her collection Magdalene (2017) Marie Howe imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman who embodies the spiritual and sensual, alive in a contemporary landscape. Between facing the traumas of her past and navigating daily life, the narrator of Magdalene yearns for the guidance of her spiritual teacher, a Christ figure, whose death she continues to grieve.
Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed Marie Howe reading and discussing the poems of Magdalene during her visit to Ledbury Poetry Festival in Herefordshire in July 2018. The poems included are: ‘Before the Beginning’, ‘On Men, Their Bodies’, ‘The Affliction’, ‘Magdalene: The Addict’, ‘The Landing’, ‘The Teacher’, ‘Magdalene – The Seven Devils’, ‘The Girl at 3’, ‘Walking Home’, ‘The Map’ and ‘One Day’. All these poems, apart from 'The Girl at 3', are included in What the Earth Seemed to Say.
[01 November 2024]
