Without Saying

by Richard Howard

In Richard Howard’s new collection, voices of myth and memory prevail, if only by means of prevarication: the voice of Medea’s mother trying to explain her daughter’s odd behavior to an indiscreet interviewer; or first and last the voice of Henry James, late in life, faced with the disputed prospect of meeting L. Frank Baum and then, later on, “managing” not only Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird but his own unruly cast of characters, including Mrs. Wharton and young Hugh Walpole.Richard Howard’s honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN Medal for Translation, and grants from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations.

Genres: Poetry

108 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2008

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aside from the overwhelming charm in each of these poems, I am interested in the way motives exist in a cross-current of statement and likely intention. Howard moves among these many different voices, including my favorite, which is a representative of a fifth grade class from Parks School, to highlight the fact that motives seem most vibrant and active in the world of contradiction.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful collection mixes myth and memory, sacred and profane, particular and general. Richard Howard just finished a residency at Waring School, and he read most of this collection to us over the course of three days. One section of the collection, "School Days," will be expanded and published this August with the title Progressive Education. Told from the voice of a fifth grade class writing to their principal, Mrs. Masters, these poems are innocent and wise, as the children grapple with questions of justice and mortality.

Howard was generous with our students, just as he has been generous with an entire generation of American poets. At 82, he remains strong and vigorous. What a pleasure to get to know him.

[Chy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The savage peacock beating and the komodo dragon pathenogensis was a neat tidbit

[James Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Richard Howard is to be admired. He has an enormous reputation. Individual poems of his I've encountered have seemed heavy with thought while at the same time being silkily elegant. But I didn't find that here and so never warmed to it. For me there was too much going on to disturb the arrangement of words in the stanza and break up the flow of thought. Most lines have quotation marks or dashes or italics or something else for the reader to stumble and stutter over. Most of these poems were so busily distracting that way that I couldn't maintain an interest. No doubt they required more effort than I was willing this reading to give them. My fault, not his.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, ugh... National Book Award committee, what were you thinking!?