Tis of Thee

by Fanny Howe

Poetry. With figures X, Y, and Z, Fanny Howe constructs "a repressed but emotional history" of encounters and unions between races, classes, genders, and epochs. Considering race as "the most random quality assigned to a soul," Howe has undertaken an (American) history of a racially mixed population. The work bears evidence to many creative unions as well: with Ben Watkins, who provided the photographs; with graphic artist Maceo Senna, who illustrated the text; with Nya Patrinos, set designer, video artist, and director of the original production; as well as with composers Miles Anderson and Erica Sharp, whose score adds another voice to the spoken three. The book includes a CD recording of the work, originally performed at the Porter Troupe gallery in San Diego, 1997, with Paul Miles (X), Stephanie French (Y), and Andre Canty (Z). "So whiteness is what is dependent on a witness. / The moon's opaque and egg-like sheen is the kind of zero / that wants to be more than air and negativity."

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Fanny 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.

Reviews

[Thea Voutiritsas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 4 with the CD recording but I didn’t have it

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another concept-y book, examination of an "inter-racial love affair" mixing dramatic monologues from characters X, Y & Z w/images. A CD is included which features readers performing the pieces over electric violin. Having tried to write narrative/sequences w/multiple characters I was drawn into the idea of the project. But when broken down, 33 or so of the 90 pages is devoted to images, leaving the remaining pages to be divvied up between the 3 personas.

It's not that the characters lack definition--their borders are supposed to be blurry--it's that Howe seems to miss opportunities to put these characters in action, to allow the reader to see how they define each other, the physics of interaction. What is there is nicely done, but I wanted more.