Spontaneous Particulars: Telepathy of Archives

by Susan Howe

Great American writers—William Carlos Williams, Jonathan Edwards, Emily Dickinson, Noah Webster, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, Henry James—all in the physicality of their archival manuscripts (reproduced in beautiful facsimiles here)—are the presiding spirits of Spontaneous Particulars: Telepathy of Archives. Also woven into Susan Howe’s long essay are beautiful photographs of embroideries and textiles from anonymous craftspeople. All the archived materials are links, discoveries, chance encounters, the visual and acoustic shocks of rooting around amid physical archives. These are the telepathies the bibliomaniacal poet relishes. Rummaging in the archives she finds “a deposit of a future yet to come, gathered and guarded...a literal and mythical sense of life hereafter—you permit yourself liberties—in the first place—happiness.” Digital scholarship may offer much for scholars, but Susan Howe loves the materiality of research in real archives and Spontaneous Particulars “is a collaged swan song to the old ways.”

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Art, Photography, Literature, Grad School

80 pages, Paperback

First published October 14, 2014

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

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

archives like a bunch of intertwined shoelaces in your pocket

[Sienna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I try not to penalize books that have been written for not coinciding with the books I hoped they'd be. In the case of Susan Howe's meditation on archival research, though, I think that it could have been so much more than a cobbling together of works she found inspiring. They are beautiful, the images and quotes that fill this lovely book-object, but the commentary connecting them feels thin, embryonic rather than ready-to-share. This wasn't an inexpensive book for its size and content, and I'm disappointed.

[Christopher Deweese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a magic book.

[Kristina Gashi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ Interesting, still a bit confusing, wish I was more informed on the authors & works mentioned but still enjoyable and unique ode to archive

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

who says the absence of a witch invalidates his spell?

[Carl Denton]

this was fun

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a poet who loves holding onto physical media and has an archive of my own, I wanted to love this book more than I actually did. Perhaps a reread when my soul and mind is better prepared. There were some great historical images and references, and I appreciated the author’s niche exploration into less canonical writers in documenting history and life, but I was waiting for things to come together a little more clearly.

[Catherine Corman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then I would fly away, and be at rest.

-Psalm 55.6, quoted in Hannah Edwards Wetmore's diary, quoted by Susan Howe

[Mandy E]

provoker of rich & extraordinary ambivalence

also, the transcription of the Dickinson envelope poem on page 57 in the endnotes is of a different poem entirely. error? intention? why?

[jihyun · Rating 4 out of 5]

poetry has no proof nor plan nor evidence by decree or in any other way. from somewhere in the twilight realm of sound a spirit of belief flares up at the point where meaning stops and the unreality of what seems most real floods over us. the inward ardor i feel while working in research libraries is intuitive. it's a sense of self-identification and trust, or the granting of grace in an ordinary room, in a secular time.

this one deserves another read, front-to-cover in one sitting, or maybe five more, much like the kind of reading poetry deserves.

a journal, a collection of notes, but one where each line needs to be peered at from multiple vantage points, as you would with an object of many surfaces — or a poem.

more than the verses and stanzas that comprise a poem is a practice of finding, sometimes creating, a depth of field that is at the heart of poetry. what is "in focus" — that is, legible on the surface of the page, like the word "stitch" — often yields a singular (or at most, just a handful) of meanings. but peer deeper into the line, the phrases, the words, even the phonemes, and there is a reservoir of meanings, intimations, and associations that extend toward the blurring horizon —

"STITCH, v.t: 1. to sew with a back puncture of the needle...
2. to form land into ridges.
to stitch up, to mend or unite with a needle and thread."

STICH. "(stick) n. 1. in poetry, a verse of whatever measure or number of feet.
2. in rural affairs, an order or rank of trees."

STICH-O-MANCY, divination of lines or passages of books taken at hazard.

rarely are these meanings created anew, but rather (re)discovered in the skeins of knowledge accumulated from shared traditions and practices, from being in the presence of other writers, poets, thinkers. there is where the archive lives, breathing in the spontaneity of relations.

each collected object or manuscript is a pre-articulate empty theater where a thought may surprise itself at the instant of seeing. where a thought may hear itself see... what difference does it make if what we see before our mind's eye has already been interpreted?

[Raven]

“The English word ‘text’ comes from Medieval Latin textus ‘style or texture of a work,’ literally ‘thing woven,’ from past participle stem of textere: ‘to weave, to join, fit together, construct.’”

From Henry James: “Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.”

“When we were children playing games of hide-and-seek the person chosen to be ‘it’ now turned round, alone and counting—was supposed to keep looking, in spite of snares and false resemblances.”

“Harmony continues to exist through fact and experiments—though there is no reason why it should—nor is there any proof you can read back the notion of one mind’s inner relation with nature’s vibratory hum.”

[Maggie]

there is a certain joy - for me anyway - at perusing ephemera, deciphering handwriting, thinking about the past. susan howe's book is a meditation on archives; her narrative is interspersed by quotes and (better) facsimile images from various writers. it's a collage, if you will - and richly rewarding.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book would best speak to those who have a connection to the writers whose works are explored within. All the same, a compelling project on the nature of archival material worthy of a reread

[Maria]

I enjoyed the elements of collage and prose poetry, and the creative ways that Howe muses on her own archival discoveries. However, some passages were too abstract for my taste, especially for an essay that begins with affirming the importance of tactile and visual experience.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A final statement -- perfect.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howe conjures the mystical joy of wandering through a library's research collections and materials. Oxidated paper, word fragments, unknown history. An effective antidote to 2020.

[L]

"For there is a wind or ghost of a wind
in all books echoing the life there"
- pg. 13 taken from 'The Library', in Paterson (Book III) by William Carlos Williams

[Cecilia]

truly no thoughts abt this

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

She gets three stars because it was actually good but the content was a little confusing for me to parse out at times

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The inward ardor I feel while working in research libraries is intuitive. It’s a sense of self-identification and trust, or the granting of grace in an ordinary room, in a secular time.”

[T Brown]

Interesting archival creative writing. Poetic artifice. Did not really know who Henry James was before this to be honest. Stitch. Skein. Emily Dickinson fanclub. Trans-gender ending.

[Philippa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning exploration of what it's like to work with archives, how these dusty folders and piles of papers are in fact alive, full of stories and mysteries. Susan Howe also captures the surprises, the chance encounters, and the occasional shocks one can have when working with an archive. A real inspiration for my work! Highly recommended for creative PhDs working with archives.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this short collection of essay, poetry and archival photocopies Howe revels on the physicality of research. From various collections she has purged examples of great authors to gather and weave a tapestry of all sorts of interesting oddments. Scribbles on envelopes and prescription cards, pictorial embroidered textiles, and even Howe’s own graphically abstract layout of word and sentence fragments. She works in definitions like the origins of “text”, charming stories about Emily Dickinson and her dictionary, and as Howe so eloquently phrased it, “the experience between… what was and what is.” If you too are fond of libraries, archives and the magical secret connections one can unravel when rummaging through a box of renowned writer fragments, you will fall in love with this book too.

[Tuesday · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARCHIVAL FERVOR

This is a book for poets. A book like a branch whose leaves are other books and writers. Howe weaves the text without stitching it, which keeps things alive and interesting. There are gems within that illuminate the artistic pursuit. It makes one want to smell and touch and decipher and encounter objects in the libraries of the world. In fact I read this in a library. Perhaps we place so much emphasis on completed works that we ignore all that was left behind yet was necessary towards its completion. There was no knot in this book that didn't shift my mind in one way or another. Howe's sentences really are one of a kind, I never walk away from her feeling without feeling a little stoned and bewildered but undeniably altered. I wonder what is in her archives...

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tiny blue fragment of his wife Sarah [/] Pierrepont Edwards' wedding dress, a journal kept by Esther Ed- [/] wards Burr (their oldest daughter) and several raggedy scraps from [/] his younger sister Hannah's private writings-

[Abby]

This is a charming book, which I had to have because I like it as an object. I like the photographs, the physical things, and the sense of discovery that is part of the telepathy of archives. Nice to have been familiar with the interesting New Englanders.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For there is a wind or a ghost of a wind
in all books echoing the life there."

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of illustrated essay on the joys of archives and rummaging in the past. Sort of.

[Paige]

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/sus...

[Isla McKetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me feel alive.