One of my favorite poets, Marie Howe, was anthologized again this week. I remember the first time I read her poems. I was wrapped up into boots and a heavy coat, sitting on the floor of the University of Utah library. I raced through all of her books and it was like my heart cracked open. Walking back to the apartment I lived in alone, watching snow falling on top of more snow, I couldn't shake that feeling of someone having read my memory. There are a lot of poets that I like, but I think Howe's poetry is more personal for me. It hits closer to home.
The poem below was the one that was anthologized this week in
The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry. It's a sort of letter poem and Johnny is Howe's brother who died from AIDS in 1989. She said about his death, "you think, 'My life is changed so utterly I don't know how to live it anymore.' And then you find a way." I can attest to that. Anyhow, here's the poem:
What the Living Do
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
Here's another one of her poems that I like.
The Gate
By Marie Howe
I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man
but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,
rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.
Every time that I read her poems I feel like I'm back in the library. Enveloped in quiet, I sit remembering and reading, the two actions happening simultaneously. It's like reaching back and grabbing my memory. It's hard to write about because it's that part of the reading experience I never talk about. The really personal part.
Anyways, I'm glad about the news. Marie Howe definitely deserves to be included in the Penguin Anthology.
I'm not sure this is really a slice of life, but there it is.
