Hinge Picture

by Susan Howe

With her first book, Hinge Picture (1974), Howe speaks from the standpoint of an unknown author who existed at some point in time on the bridge between prehistory and history. From this primeval writer may have come the Bible, and Howe's verse relates a tale that integrates mythological sources, ancient texts, and classical writings.

Genres: Poetry

42 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Susan Howe was born in 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the author of several books of poems and two volumes of criticism. Her most recent poetry collections are The Midnight (2003), Kidnapped (2002), The Europe of Trusts (2002), Pierce-Arrow (1999), Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979 (1996), The Nonconformist's Memorial (1993), The Europe of Trusts: Selected Poems (1990), and Singularities (1990).

Her books of criticism are The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History (1993), which was named an "International Book of the Year" by the Times Literary Supplement, and My Emily Dickinson (1985).

Her work also has appeared in Anthology of American Poetry, edited by Cary Nelson (Oxford University Press, 1999); The Norton Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (2003); and Poems for the Millennium, Volume 2, edited by Pierre Joris and Jerome Rotherberg (1998).

She has received two American Book Awards from the Before Columbus Foundation and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. In 1996 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and in the winter of 1998 she was a distinguished fellow at the Stanford Institute of the Humanities.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps make a HINGE PICTURE. (folding yardstick, book. . . . )
develop in space the PRINCIPLE OF THE HINGE in the displacements 1st in the
plane 2nd in the space.
 - Marcel Duchamp, note for the Green Box

1.

 invisible angel confined
 to a point simpler than
 a soul a lunar sphere a
 demon darkened intelle
 ct mirror clear receiv
 ing the mute vocables
 of God that rained
 a demon daring down in h
 ieroglyph and stuttering



 lived promiscuousl
 y 
 in moveable tent
 s



She rises while it is still dark, no trace a military combination
in the sand, singing
"these little empires where settled about one hundred years
after the Flood"



 Joseph dreamt
 that the sun
 Moon and elev
 en Stars made
 their Obeisa
 nce to him
 his
 brothers thre
 w him in a pit



 LEAHISWEDDEDTOMEINTHENIGHT

 his blear-eyed less
 attractive daughter)
 when sailing sleep
 westward through her
 pillars was a sign
 of being born



the hounds of 
the huntsman of
the emperor have
run down a curious
beast on all fours
a golden circlet
around his mouth
shines 
like a star



A woman whose breasts
had not grown was cast
up on a seashore in Europe 
She was fifty feet tall
and her chest was seven
feet wide She had on a
purple cloak and her hands
were tied behind her back
Her head had been cut off



 forbad
 e cohabit
 ation with
 a menstruous
 woman or
 mating with
 a beast



365 boys
clothed in scarlet

followed the Magi
that carried the fire

that burned on the altar
that stood at the front of their army



 The Gate of Reuben
 The Gate of Judah
 The Gate of Levi
 The Gate of Joseph
 The Gate of Benjamin
 The Gate of Dan
 The Gate of Issachar
 The Gate of Zebulun
 The Gate of God
 The Gate of Asher
 The Gate of Naphtali



accessible passes roman forest craggy
and the pyranees melt a moist valley
flesh and milk euxine bulwark
the lesser and flexible strength
conducting ramparts the real their
God and valiant magi following 
white matter if the brain and spinal
cord a long white city ALBA



 silkworm peacock salamander
 bee swan lion ostrich dove
 fish basilisk camel eagle
 taxo beaver weasel swallow
 cat crow unicorn minotaur
 scylla and elephant or with
 herbs and trees such as
 heliotrope pepper nettle
 hellebore and palm with
 minerals such as salt adama
 nt and magnet or with
 terrestrial an celestial
 phenomena such as earth
 wind cloud rainbow moon

 sing to Yahwek for He
 is vastly elevate Horse
 and its driver He hurled
 into the sea Driver of
 the cloud rider of Heaven's 
 vision dance before the
 Ark awake to the silence
 of stone to the feat of
 the widewinged falcon my
 myth my wonder tale is to
 be secret to lie prone
 along the skyline in re
 mote fastness along the
 hillside there to watch
 Elijah in ecstatic frenzy
 running before King Ahab's
 chariot as far as the
 ancient city of JEZREEL

[...]


Hinge Picture is collected in Frame Structures, along with the early poems (1974-1979) of Susan Howe