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Well, sort of. I don't know how many books it will sell, Fred <g>. I take your points, & can only respond that I don't have the same problems, but can see why some would. I don't have Souls yet, so will have to track it down (I am so far behind reading the books I do have on hand, although am reading some that come to me for review etc). They range from a new translation of Cafavy (which I have read & enjoyed) through various Canucks to some US poets, & then including Trevor Joyce's What's in Store, which I am part way through & agree with Stephen is a terrific collection. Doug On 23-Sep-08, at 7:43 AM, Frederick Pollack wrote: > Doug - This is just to say that I've recently read Susan Howe's last > two books, Pierce-Arrow and Souls of the Labadie Tract, and enjoyed > them. Her technique of having figures across American history - > Melville, Peirce, Stevens, her beloved Dickinson - morph (on the > strength of some similar problem or aspect) into each other, seem to > become each other and speak each other's lines - is highly > original. And I appreciate her eye for the fragment, the forgotten > memorial - such as the "Labadie poplar" that is the only relic of a > fervent utopian-communist community. There's genuine imagination > here, and passion. > > Two points, though. First: She, Howe, is entirely a creature of > libraries; her swooning before old texts and textuality as such > strikes me as tedious and self-admiring. And there's a kind of > scolding, ideological feminism in her Dickinson cult and other > aspects of her work (I have, as I once mentioned, many of her books). > > Second, more important: poetry of whatever style should mean, I > think, compression. The superimposed, scattered, unreadable phrases > (there are fewer of these in Pierce-Arrow and Souls than elsewhere) > strike me pointless. If they are supposed to be visual metaphors of > the ruins of the past, of communications melded and blurred by > history, the point isn't particularly subtle and needn't be made > more than once. Pierce-Arrow and Souls are composed of center-of- > the-page, punctuationless, only faintly rhythmical blurts. Even > when these aren't the usual Langpo non sequiturs, they trail off > and, in tone if not in burden, repeat themselves. Reading her means > picking out a few salient items from the mass, making a coherent > picture out of these, and basing one's response on that picture. > It's an art not of compression but of wastage, and I think that's > unfortunate. > > Nevertheless, these are the only works at all associated with the > Language style for which I've felt any liking. As oppsed to faint > amusement (Ashbery), unenthusiastic respect (Prynne), or loathing > (all the others). > Douglas Barbour [log in to unmask] http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ Latest books: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy) http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664 Wednesdays' http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html Language is sound as sense. Music is sound as sound. R. Murray Schafer