Secret History of the Dividing Line

by Susan Howe

Genres: Poetry

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

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

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it: one of my more favorite texts of hers. As often, especially interesting for the historical insights, unusual use of materials, and brilliant language.
Ellie NYC

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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tract indicate position 2 record bunting interval
free also event starting the slight position of
O about both or don't something INDICATION Americ

made or also symbol sachem maimed as on her for
ar in teacher duct excellent figure MARK lead be
knife knows his hogs dogs a boundary model nucle
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 THE LAST FIRST PEOPLE

 We sailed north
 it was March
 White sands
 and fragrant woods
 the permanence
 of endless distance.

When next I looked he was gone
 Frame of our Universe
 Our intellectual wilderness
 no longer boundless
 west
when next I looked he was gone.

 Close at hand the ocean
 until before
 hidden from our vision
 MARK
 border
 bulwark. an object set up to indicate a boundary or position
 hence a sign or token
 impression or trace

 The Horizon

I am another generation
 when next I looked he was gone.

 One may fall
 at the beginning of a charge
 or at the top of the earthworks.

 For an instant your heart stops

 and you say to yourself

 the skirmishers are at it

wearing their wounds like stars the armies of the dead sweep over.

 My map is rotten and frayed with rain



Dear Parents

I am writing by candlelight
All right so far

after a long series of collisions
had a good night's rest.

Belief in the right of our cause.
Tomorrow we move

 from hence
 from hence
 from hence

salvages

 or

 savages

 at the east end of the Island a great fire.

 AND THIS IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR LABOR

 That the sea brake extremely at the bar
 And the tide went forceably at the entrance
 Saw in the sand the print of savage feet


THE FIRST ENGLISH CHILD BORN IN NEW ENGLAND WAS NAMED

 PEREGRINE OR THE WANDERER


 for Mark my father, and Mark my son



We enter the ancient town of SWORDS, consisting of a long, wide street, situated on a great northern road, at a distance of eight miles from the metropolis. It derives its name from the Celtic word, sord meaning pure, originally applied to St Columbkille's well, which from time immemorial had been one of the principal sources of water supply to the town.

According to ancient records, SWORDS was burnt by the Danes in 1012, 1016, 1030, 1138, 1150, and 1166 A.D.; and in 1185 it was taken and sacked by O'Melaghlin, King of Meath.



O
where ere
he He A

ere I were
wher

father father

O it is the old old
myth

march

month of victims and saviors

girl on the dirt track

yea order of knighthood
Brim



Secret History of the Dividing Line is collected in Frame Structures, along with the early poems (1974-1979) of Susan Howe