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New California Poetry
Selected Poems
One of the best and most respected experimental poets in the United States, Fanny Howe has published more than twenty books, mostly with small presses, and this publication of her selected poems is a major event.
Howe's theme is the exile of the spirit in this world and the painfully exciting, tiny margin in which movement out of exile is imaginable and perhaps possible. Her best poems are simultaneously investigations of that possibility and protests against the difficulty of salvation.
Boston is the setting of some of the early poems, and Ireland, the birthplace of Howe's mother, is the home of O'Clock, a spiritually piquant series of short poems included in Selected Poems.
The metaphysics and the physics of this world play off each other in these poems, and there is a toughness to Howe's unique, fertile nervousness of spirit. Her spare style makes a nest for the soul:
Zero built a nest
in my navel. Incurable
Longing. Blood too—
From violent actions
It's a nest belonging to one
But zero uses it
And its pleasure is its own
—from The Quietist
Howe's theme is the exile of the spirit in this world and the painfully exciting, tiny margin in which movement out of exile is imaginable and perhaps possible. Her best poems are simultaneously investigations of that possibility and protests against the difficulty of salvation.
Boston is the setting of some of the early poems, and Ireland, the birthplace of Howe's mother, is the home of O'Clock, a spiritually piquant series of short poems included in Selected Poems.
The metaphysics and the physics of this world play off each other in these poems, and there is a toughness to Howe's unique, fertile nervousness of spirit. Her spare style makes a nest for the soul:
Zero built a nest
in my navel. Incurable
Longing. Blood too—
From violent actions
It's a nest belonging to one
But zero uses it
And its pleasure is its own
—from The Quietist
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 2000
9 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
Fanny Howe
91 books158 followersFanny Quincy Howe was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Howe wrote more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as One Crossed Out, Gone, and Second Childhood; the novels Nod, The Deep North, and Indivisible; and collected essays such as The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life and The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation.
Howe received praise and official recognition: she was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation. She also received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of California. In addition, her Selected Poems received the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2000. She was a finalist for the 2015 International Booker Prize. She also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Poetry Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Village Voice. She was professor of writing and literature at the University of California, San Diego and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Howe received praise and official recognition: she was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation. She also received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of California. In addition, her Selected Poems received the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2000. She was a finalist for the 2015 International Booker Prize. She also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Poetry Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Village Voice. She was professor of writing and literature at the University of California, San Diego and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
November 5, 2022
from Lines Out to Silence
by Fanny Howe
How long I’ve waited, I can’t count
Long days in green — eternal advent —
like fine bones drying in the north wood snow
when the whites of the hunter
have come and gone —
I’m animal mineral vegetable friend —
calling to one. It keeps me young.
Through rainclouds on the hills I call
down to the ivy, watery walls
past the gate, slate roof and brick
painted to childhood’s size
To one I cry: Come!
Take the walk with me home.
by Fanny Howe
How long I’ve waited, I can’t count
Long days in green — eternal advent —
like fine bones drying in the north wood snow
when the whites of the hunter
have come and gone —
I’m animal mineral vegetable friend —
calling to one. It keeps me young.
Through rainclouds on the hills I call
down to the ivy, watery walls
past the gate, slate roof and brick
painted to childhood’s size
To one I cry: Come!
Take the walk with me home.
Read
June 7, 2024Fanny Howe’s poems are crafted with a minimalist approach, mist of language, yet they carry a profound existential weight. She invites us to slow down and observe the linguistic possibilities. The language serves as a vehicle for the expression of Howe’s contemplative and often spiritual musings. Through her use of language, Howe engages in what critic Jordan Davis describes, referring South American poet Jorge Guinheime coinage, as “hasosismo,” or the art of the fallen limb, where startling insights emerge and are subsequently concealed.
Howe’s imagery is evocative and often rooted in the natural world, serving as metaphors for the spiritual and ethical dilemmas she contemplates. Her images are not merely decorative but are integral to the thematic fabric of her work. They often reflect a sense of exile and the search for salvation, creating a tension between the mundane and the transcendent
Her poetry reflects a world where certainty is questioned, and the individual’s place within it is precarious. This sometimes aligns with her thematic concerns with social justice, marginalization, the quest for meaning in a fragmented world, and human condition.
Howe’s imagery is evocative and often rooted in the natural world, serving as metaphors for the spiritual and ethical dilemmas she contemplates. Her images are not merely decorative but are integral to the thematic fabric of her work. They often reflect a sense of exile and the search for salvation, creating a tension between the mundane and the transcendent
Her poetry reflects a world where certainty is questioned, and the individual’s place within it is precarious. This sometimes aligns with her thematic concerns with social justice, marginalization, the quest for meaning in a fragmented world, and human condition.
February 13, 2021
3.5 stars. Frequently unpredictable, often almost unintelligible. Strong images, scattered great lines. Whole poems don’t often gel exactly, but at least she’s not writing boring poems about suburban American life.
January 24, 2022
Selected Poems is divided into sixteen parts: "Introduction to the World", "Q", "The Nursery", "Robertson Street", "Joy Had I Known", "Veteran", "Close Up", "Conclusively", "Goodbye, Post Office Square", "Lines out to Silence", "Poem from a Single Pallet", "The Vineyard", "In the Spirit There Are No Accidents", "The Sea-Garden", "The Quietist", and "O'Clock"
From "Introduction to the World"...
From "Q"...
From "The Nursery"...
From "Robertson Street"...
From "Joy Had I Known"...
From "Veteran"...
From "Close Up"...
From "Conclusively"...
From "Goodbye, Post Office Square"...
From "Lines out to Silence"...
From "Poem from a Single Pallet"...
From "The Vineyard"...
From "In the Spirit There Are No Accidents"...
From "The Sea-Garden"...
From "The Quietist"...
From "O'Clock"...
From "Introduction to the World"...
I'd speak if I wasn't afraid of inhaling
A memory I want to forget
Like I trusted the world which wasn't mine
The hollyhock in the tall vase is wide awake
And feeling are only overcome by fleeing
To their opposite. Moisture and dirt
Have entered the space between threshold and floor
A lot is my estimate when I step on it
Sorrow can be a home to stand on so
And see far to: another earth, a place I might know- pg. 5
From "Q"...
We moved to be happy
Like a remote sensing tool each body
in the family
adapted to earth's urbanity and travelled
When the water went south for the winter
it carried us down like storm-driven gulls
to this crash that we call a city- pg. 19
From "The Nursery"...
The cornerstone's dust
upfloating
by truck & tanks.
White flowers spackle
the sky crossing the sea.
A plane above the patio
wakes the silence
and my infant who raises
his arms to see
what he's made of.
O animation! O liberty!- pg. 37
From "Robertson Street"...
A blight was on the oaks
in Franklin Park where Olmsted planned
and drew an artificial paradise.
But in the zoo an animal
killed his keeper the same night I wanted to kill mine,
and this stage was really hell - the fracas of an El
to downtown Boston, back out again,
with white boys banging the lids of garbage cans,
calling race-hatred into our livingroom
through leaves which naturally dizzied and fell- pg. 43
From "Joy Had I Known"...
There's a lot of the West
On this continent
A large snow is drifting
Towards those parts smiles
For the art pieces mounted on earth
Rebound as beauty in each thing is cut asunder
Steal the thunder of unclear weapons
And West is West even if you're in it
A US Space Station turns towards our ice palace
Those nearest the palace laugh hardest- pg. 53
From "Veteran"...
I don't believe in the light on the river
moving with it or the green bulbs hanging on the elms
Outdoors, indoors, I don't believe in a gridlock of ripples
or the deep walls people live inside
Some of the others believe in food & drink & perfume
I don't. And I don't believe in shut-in time
for those who committed a crime
of passion. Like a sweetheart
of the iceberg or wings lost at sea
the wind is what I believe in,
the One that moves around each form- pg. 60
From "Close Up"...
The orange flower on the other side of that pane -
Paper or fate?
Put your finger in the light, Eyes, and draw
A white field. A lamb made of lambs
Before the world is round
There's a line of traffic
Which shakes aside all sparrowings
Triggers follow feeling but precede acting on them
A feeling triggers a feeling, then the heft
Of the hand to work
A human face is pressed on glass; mirrors like armour
Break shapes into targets
The woman's face on the other side of this pane -
Paper or fate?
Written in light, in either case- pg. 63
From "Conclusively"...
The night was almost too long to bear
Then there was evidence of mercy - a passing car -
milky air - and I could see
dry walls & gravel on the way to a highway
Atlantic for its grays
Loss is the fulfillment of the Law
Space collected on a long line
I was eliminated as a locus of mothering -
a she - physical but imaginary as a restless daughter
Why this body and not another
The one who came to destroy the works of women - their
offspring -
knew how many people were resisting incarnation
He counted on them by accommodating them- pg. 67
From "Goodbye, Post Office Square"...
In the next world I discovered
a hovel where a naked I writes with a nail
There you're as small as zero, the hole in the wall
the mouse goes in
with a whorl of cheese
for the littlest glass-cutter to eat
To paint one rose equals a life in that place
and on the thorny path outside
one cathedral is equal to the sky- pg. 74
From "Lines out to Silence"...
How long I've waited, I can't count
Long days in green - eternal advent -
like fine bones drying in the north wood snow
when the whites of the hunter
have come and gone -
I'm animal mineral vegetable friend -
calling to one. It keeps me young.
Through rainclouds on the hills I call
down to the ivy, watery walls
past the gate, slate rood and brick
painted to childhood's size
To one I cry: Come!
Take the walk with me home.- pg. 77
From "Poem from a Single Pallet"...
The wildness of the flower is all in the tone
Where the yellow goldenrod's a chirrup
When its chaperone is sleeping, Queen Anne's Lace
appears beside chicory, seemingly for beauty's sake
And one wild rose, the last,
before October, blackens on the bush, the bees
have headed off to the thistle factory
It's audible, if you see it -
colour & strain of voice, among purples,
an indifferent shoulder (rocks) raised to dim
the passionate voice- pg. 89
From "The Vineyard"...
To imitation England
Her owners brought her
Something like a transplanted hand
Of green fans grew in the vineyard
And she was there. Despair
Calculated she'd be home by never
When she was looking to locate
Heaven under a bell of seeds
She found her bird, they'd hung it there- pg. 95
From "In the Spirit There Are No Accidents"...
God is already and waiting: the future is full.
One steps timidly over the world;
the other is companionable.
The house is there. The door is there . . . others . . .
But for you they make no sound when you're so far.
I know the bench is by the pond tomorrow
when I can follow the streets to it by heart.
Yes, streets. Yes, heart.
Nightwalk of faith, chromosomes live in the past.
The land is an incarnation
like a hand on a hand on an arm asking do you know me?- pg. 115
From "The Sea-Garden"...
The human is a thing
Who walks around disintegrating. Robins
Take turns in the birch. Lower down, hottentot figs
Burst green water
I've got to try touching
A cactus
Never happier in the world - that - am
Happy as yellow monochrome
The fragilest colour among them- pg. 128
From "The Quietist"...
Two waters - squared
by an alley -
Three acorns -
One wet chair
Several yellow
chestnuts -
A man's erect
nipples
It was enemy class
travel
with the devil
who's red for a reason
Pleasure bloodies his underskin
Thin skin- pg. 136
From "O'Clock"...
I suffer from ire, it's electric.
I quaff a philter to choke it -
followed by a cordial -
the next morning, my ire is back.
When was my hear's ease lost
in circles of fire? When I started
seeking cures made of poison, asp.- pg. 153
Read
July 10, 2025"The sea at last lies over this place/ And registers expressly/ During my siesta/ I know evolution is done developing/ Its laws of mathematics must be correct/ In my created head I don't exist/ As rising bed-heavy the mist/ Is fixed though always full of surprises/ And the world in my eyes/ Is hardly a certainty" (13)
"If I follow a sequence of dares/ each one will be part of/ the final product/ That's why I'm happy" (29)
"through leaves which naturally dizzied and fell" (43)
"A Millenium starts where you stand and cry/ Oh man this life was full of failure/ to say thanks...Three hundreed and twenty eight more days/ are due this year and even with that many lives/ I'd still have only one history" (44)
"Loss is the fulfillment of the Law/ Space collected on a long line...One day I will shake the blue sky from my hair/ and slip back into consciousness--" (67-68)
"To paint one rose equals a life in that place/ and on the thorny path outside/ one cathedral is equal to the sky" (74)
"The path turned forever/ it was that uncertain" (80)
"Winter tones are rose & glass/ the sun as false as all nostalgias/ If this world isn't good enough for us/ then an afterlife won't be enough" (81)
"As the moon is an alien rock/ one who has attended history intact/ is only an ornament" (82)
"To have faith in a giant when faith in the self/ Has been lost. Twin appetites/ Let no light in but refract it" (106)
"The human is a thing/ Who walks around disintegrating" (128)
"Rapture in exile--paradox:/ This garden's not a home/ Red sun on heart-shaped leaves/ Is like the heat of the true vine/ But not it" (132)
"Can desire be a mistake?/ The theme can be wrong, but not the music/ And I lay there dying/ For my asylum/ Was myself" (137)
"The earth will suffer, drop,/ then enter eternal doubt/ and those soft clouds/ will be its literature./ Space in time goes against nature./ This condition is called "the future" (149)
"And air gets into everything./ Even nothing" (150)
"Half of every experience is lack of experience" (162)
"To know anything new is to know it as known" (171)
"The edge of the dome is slipping/ like a fool's pudding/ under silver. It's dawn, I'm up/ aggressively begging: God/ give me a penitent haircut/ and a cell-- not a hospital--/ to defend my errors in./ And no answers, please, to any of my questions" (174)
"I often believe that nothing can be lost./ A quarter-inch aura grows/ like moss out of everything soft" (184)
"If I follow a sequence of dares/ each one will be part of/ the final product/ That's why I'm happy" (29)
"through leaves which naturally dizzied and fell" (43)
"A Millenium starts where you stand and cry/ Oh man this life was full of failure/ to say thanks...Three hundreed and twenty eight more days/ are due this year and even with that many lives/ I'd still have only one history" (44)
"Loss is the fulfillment of the Law/ Space collected on a long line...One day I will shake the blue sky from my hair/ and slip back into consciousness--" (67-68)
"To paint one rose equals a life in that place/ and on the thorny path outside/ one cathedral is equal to the sky" (74)
"The path turned forever/ it was that uncertain" (80)
"Winter tones are rose & glass/ the sun as false as all nostalgias/ If this world isn't good enough for us/ then an afterlife won't be enough" (81)
"As the moon is an alien rock/ one who has attended history intact/ is only an ornament" (82)
"To have faith in a giant when faith in the self/ Has been lost. Twin appetites/ Let no light in but refract it" (106)
"The human is a thing/ Who walks around disintegrating" (128)
"Rapture in exile--paradox:/ This garden's not a home/ Red sun on heart-shaped leaves/ Is like the heat of the true vine/ But not it" (132)
"Can desire be a mistake?/ The theme can be wrong, but not the music/ And I lay there dying/ For my asylum/ Was myself" (137)
"The earth will suffer, drop,/ then enter eternal doubt/ and those soft clouds/ will be its literature./ Space in time goes against nature./ This condition is called "the future" (149)
"And air gets into everything./ Even nothing" (150)
"Half of every experience is lack of experience" (162)
"To know anything new is to know it as known" (171)
"The edge of the dome is slipping/ like a fool's pudding/ under silver. It's dawn, I'm up/ aggressively begging: God/ give me a penitent haircut/ and a cell-- not a hospital--/ to defend my errors in./ And no answers, please, to any of my questions" (174)
"I often believe that nothing can be lost./ A quarter-inch aura grows/ like moss out of everything soft" (184)
June 6, 2024
I would give it six stars if I could.
October 9, 2020
I love the poems in the sequence O Clock that have that mystical Rumi-esque thing: "I have backed up | into my silence || as inexhaustible as the sun | that calls a tip of candle | to its furnace. || Red sparks hit a rough surface. | I have been out -- cold -- too -- long enough." This recalls the Rumi image of holding a candle up to the sunlight, until the sunlight, putting it out, bursts into flame.
Howe has set us the track toward this final sequence by emphasizing sequences throughout this Selected. There are 16 sequences, of varying lengths. [O Clock is book-length.] Not narrative, but personal, abjuring image but the lines are all in their actions. Howe benefits enormously from the pressure this selection puts on her strengths, her lines in their witness.
Howe has set us the track toward this final sequence by emphasizing sequences throughout this Selected. There are 16 sequences, of varying lengths. [O Clock is book-length.] Not narrative, but personal, abjuring image but the lines are all in their actions. Howe benefits enormously from the pressure this selection puts on her strengths, her lines in their witness.
September 12, 2024
My first experience reading Fanny Howe.
Throughout the book, there weren’t many “holy shit” or “gaddem!” moments, but it was a consistent “ooh” or “mmmh” and “word…”.
Her poetics doesn’t impact me as much as I would have liked it to. Nevertheless, there are at least eleven (11) bangers in this 149 collection of selected poems (and a total of 23 poems that I liked—including the bangers).
Checkout page:
73, 81, 86, 90, 150, 161, 163, 165, 184, 191, and 204
Also, the end-product is—*chef’s kiss*—exquisite. The type of paper, the font, the margins, the cover material & design, the weight, the dimension. It’s so good!
Throughout the book, there weren’t many “holy shit” or “gaddem!” moments, but it was a consistent “ooh” or “mmmh” and “word…”.
Her poetics doesn’t impact me as much as I would have liked it to. Nevertheless, there are at least eleven (11) bangers in this 149 collection of selected poems (and a total of 23 poems that I liked—including the bangers).
Checkout page:
73, 81, 86, 90, 150, 161, 163, 165, 184, 191, and 204
Also, the end-product is—*chef’s kiss*—exquisite. The type of paper, the font, the margins, the cover material & design, the weight, the dimension. It’s so good!
March 13, 2025
I won’t be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed —
and the short northern nights
And of course Fanny Howe poems
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed —
and the short northern nights
And of course Fanny Howe poems
October 29, 2025
These poems floored me, like reading figments of a dream. The blurbs by people like John ashberry said it much better than I could — but I fell in love with Ms Howe’s poetry and I hope she is resting in peace.
October 15, 2019
I just could not understand nor appreciate her works. I put them down and tried later but they did not speak to me. My loss I am sure.
October 19, 2025
I took pictures of at least 20 poems in this book
October 1, 2025
I picked up this book after seeing one of Fanny Howe's poems online (‘I won’t be able to write from the grave") and liking it; unfortunately, it turns out that was one of the few poems I liked in this collection. I just didn't care for her writing style: the fragmented language and ambiguous punctuation (combined with lots of enjambment) often made the poems difficult to follow, so I had a hard time finding meaning in them. But there were some beautiful turns of phrase in the poems, so even though this collection wasn't for me, I still admired Howe's obvious skill as a poet.
May 23, 2013
This volume is part of the New California Poets series. The front flap describes the theme of Howe's poems as "the exile of the spirit in this world and the painfully exciting, yet small margin in which return from exile is imaginable and perhaps even possible." In may ways, that is a central theme in most postmodern American poetry. It is Howe's style that most strikes this reader: spare, hushed, observant. Howe occasionally stumbles on leftist politics, but the landscape of the soul (and the soul of the landscape) abides.
Go on out but come back in
you told me to live by, so I went
with my little dog trotting
at my side, out of the garden
into woods colored rotten.
I did this several times, out and in,
it was of course a meditation.
The out surrounds me now
a whole invisible O to live in
tender tantrums, sky gone suddenly gray--
still softens light but no one brings
papers here to sign. The top of the water
shudders under the brush of wind.
Past? Present? Future? No such things.
Go on out but come back in
you told me to live by, so I went
with my little dog trotting
at my side, out of the garden
into woods colored rotten.
I did this several times, out and in,
it was of course a meditation.
The out surrounds me now
a whole invisible O to live in
tender tantrums, sky gone suddenly gray--
still softens light but no one brings
papers here to sign. The top of the water
shudders under the brush of wind.
Past? Present? Future? No such things.
November 30, 2007
one of my favorite books. all time.
November 7, 2008
One of those books that makes me feel less alone in this world.
August 10, 2010
Given the high esteem in which Howe is held by most of the readers here, I have to view my tepid response to the majority of these collected poems as a personal failure....
March 31, 2014
Q and O'Clock are favorites :)
November 9, 2014
I would give it six stars if I could.
March 24, 2016
I feel like if I just find the right collection, I'll get it....
January 28, 2013
fanny howe's poetry is deceptively simple, but necessary.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews