Untitled Subjects: Poems

by Richard Howard

Book by Howard, Richard

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Dave Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

While everything was well-written I felt like I lacked the historical context to fully appreciate many of these poems.

(Tristan's review said this much better than I can.)

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects (Atheneum, 1969)

Richard Howard has emerged in the past few decades as one of America's foremost poets, a man whose every release sends college English professors swooning to their beds to take a "rest cure" (while of course sitting under the covers with a flashlight devouring the poems). And deservedly so; Howard's mature work is the stuff dreams are made of. Not often in a person's lifetime does a book like, say, No Traveller come along. One is tempted to put much of this down to his impeccable taste; Howard is equally lauded for his translation skills, which he has applied to such classics as Robbe-Grillet's Repetition, Breton's Nadja, and Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. Obviously, the boy has a thing for surrealism, and it informs his work in the most wondrous of ways.

But then the question becomes, what was his stuff like before that? Enter the present volumes, 1969's Untitled Subjects, a series of dramatic monologues from various great figures (or attendants to/acquaintances of same) that span the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The poetic connoisseur will likely see the words "dramatic monologue" and think, first, of Robert Browning, and said connoisseur would not be far off the mark in thinking so.

Howard writes for the most part in free and blank verse rather than Browning's logorrheic iambic pentameter, and that alone makes Howard's work the more readable (if at some points a bit more forgettable as well). It may be a comparison of apples and oranges, and running such a comparison puts reviewers at risk of falling victim to the "what is poetry?" debate. But Howard is worth the risk, and at the time of the book's release notables such as Harold Bloom and James Dickey were quick to point out the Browning comparison so this reviewer figures he's on relatively safe ground. Only time can tell whether such lovely pieces as "1915," an existential crisis of William Morris' wife Jane, or "1851," a letter purportedly written by John Ruskin while on his honeymoon, will stand with "Fra Lippo Lippi" in the canon of literature. Whether they deserve to or not is of course a matter of subjectivity, but I think they're pretty darn good. Browning needs to scoot over a bit and make room for Howard on that short shelf. ***

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was so close to being a four-star book. All of the poems were well written and each monologue told an intriguing story in a distinct and powerful voice. The notes at the beginning were helpful for understanding what was going on, but didn't always give lots of information. My favorite poem was easily "1889: Alassio," which I thought was the most interesting in terms of content and the best in terms of sound. "1876" was also very good, a letter from Lady Trevelyan to her son about her brother, Lord Macaulay, and the biography of him the son was writing.

This brings me to my big problem with the book. I did not know who many of the characters, both speakers and those being spoken to or about, were. Some were know to me, Rossini and Tennyson among them, but many, such as Lord Macaulay, Sir Moses Montefiore,and Hermann Levi, were not. Now, after looking up the characters, the poems were all pretty straightforward and they were all well-written, but not knowing who was talking or being talked about pulled this from a four star book to merely getting three.

[Dom Zuccone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the volume Richard Howard will be remembered for more than any other of his erudite, sophisticated works. Here he speaks through, or puts on the personas of several figures overlooked or peripheral to literature before the crash of modernity. Sadly out of print.

Like true masters, Howard sublimates his generous knowledge to subtle detail and composition...what once was described as taste and understatement in poetry.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly enjoyable, extremely clever.