From 'Far and Away'
Fanny Howe was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1940. Ben E. Watkins hide caption
ny Howe has written more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Each poem in her new book, The Lyrics, "is a lament formed in a place of rest, asking: can we get beyond this and still be?" Howe's On the Ground was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
To mark National Poetry Month, NPR.org is featuring a series of newly published works selected by the Academy of American Poets. Learn more about this and other titles at the academy's New Spring Books list.
From Far and Away
Fanny Howe
The rain falls on.
Acres of violets unfold.
Dandelion, mayflower
Myrtle and forsythia follow.
The cardinals call to each other.
Echoes of delicate
Breath-broken whistles.
I know something now
About subject, object, verb
And about one word that fails
For lack of substance.
Now people say, He passed on
Instead of that. Unit
Of space subtracted by one.
It almost rhymes with earth.
What is a poet but a person
Who lives on the ground
Who laughs and listens
Without pretension of knowing
Anything, driven by the lyric's
Quest for rest that never
(God willing) will be found?
Concord, kitchen table, 1966.
Corbetts, Creeley, a grandmother
And me. Sweater, glasses,
One wet eye.
Lots of laughter
Before and after. Every meeting
Rhymed and fluttered into meter.
The beat was the message.....
(for Robert Creeley)
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