Her Read: A Graphic Poem (Volume 1)

by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth

Her A Graphic Poem is a hybrid text at once poetry and visual art. In the tradition of reusing canvases, Steinorth takes a seminal text, The Meaning of Art by Herbert Read and with the liberal use of correction fluid, scalpel and embroidery floss, transforms the book from art criticism into feminist verse. Though the maternal body appears with frequency in Read’s illustrated text which spans from prehistory to the modern age, he includes zero female artists. Her A Graphic Poem is an excavation of buried voices, a reclamation of bodies framed in gilt and an homage to those whose arts remain unsung.

Genres: Poetry, Graphic Novels, Comics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2021

About the author

Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s books include Boys Behind Glass (TRP, 2026), A Wake with Nine Shades (TRP, 2019), & Her Read, A Graphic Poem (TRP, 2021), recipient of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Fred Whitehead Award & a Foreword Reviews Prize in Poetry. A poet, interdisciplinary artist, scholar & licensed builder, she lectures at the University of Michigan, spins the O is for Octopus substack, & is the biographer of CD Wright. ​The recipient of residencies & fellowships from Yale, Vermont Studio Center, Community of Writers, & elsewhere​, she writes & teaches to commute chronic pain.

Reviews

[Jennifer Steinorth]

This is my own book and I'm not going to "review it", but some smart folks at some great journals have asked me some tough questions on the making of it so here are a few bits.... with links to the full interviews below.

TQ: You’re a poet, educator, interdisciplinary artist, and licensed builder. I’m very curious about those last two descriptors—artist and builder—and how they’ve influenced your writing. In your first book, A Wake with Nine Shades, you experimented with the way the words appear on the page (I’m thinking of poems like “GODDOG DOGGOD GODDOG DOGGOD GODDOG” and the “wink” interludes), but not to the level we see in Her Read. It’s apparent that Her Read is a confluence of your talents and experiences as an artist-builder-poet. Can you talk about your artistic and poetic development in light of your two books and whether you see Her Read as a culmination of your abilities or a stop along pathway of further literary artistic experimentation?

JSS: I think it’s interesting to consider how the things we make, make us: the architecture of our bodies, neurological pathways—determined not only by our genetic makeup and what happens to us, but by the muscles we develop, the processes we attend. I definitely think of writing in terms of theatre, design, and construction.

Dance was my first artistic devotion and formative in myriad ways. When I began to write, I found music was a driving force; a bit later came structure. But I was also concerned with the line as perceived by the eye—its movement across the stage of the page—the fall or flight off the end—and the weight (and grace) of its landing. And though it may be true that, in poetry, line is king, I have long been concerned with unoccupied spaces and felt those fields as active agents. There is crossover here with what visual artists refer to as “negative space.” Of course, unoccupied space is more active in some poems than in others—but it is quite active in my first book, as well as Her Read. I like the way spatial organization can externalize interior shifts—in tone, time, place—or the way space may be used in lieu of punctuation. All this allows more to be said with less. To me this is the essence of gesture. Unoccupied space also creates room for the reader to move inside the poem.

with Dane Hamaan at TriQuarterly Review

And here is another bit from an interview with the talented Amanda Newell:

AN: When you talk about our collective inheritance as women, and of “secret project[s],” I can’t help thinking about Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic—their study of nineteenth century women writers and how feminine creativity so often correlates with madness and isolation. I think of how Bertha Mason Rochester’s rage literally burns the house down in Jane Eyre. I think of Dickinson alone in her room and lowering baskets of goodies to the children outside. I think of the very real importance of having a room of one’s own and also of the dangers of not having that “room.”

I’m not sure what my question is here—maybe it’s really a kind of three-dimensional one about space: about having the physical space—the room as in real, physical space, but also space on the page, and of course psychological space. You have talked before about the experience of being a ballerina, which requires a particular awareness of the body in space, and how the body inhabits space. How would you describe your relationship between space and creativity as you worked on Her Read?


JSS: This is such a rich question—you’ve sent my brain off to twelve different rooms to locate answers. And I love the context you give—the womxn you’ve brought into the conversation.

I immediately want to invite Judy Chicago into the space—one of the first womxn visual artists that I recall being both moored and unmoored by. Of course The Dinner Party asks us to consider what it means to have a PLACE—or a seat at the table. And I think of Louise Bourgeois who I discovered only recently—and who was not recognized for her prolific and profound work until she was around 70. Thankfully for us she went on producing art for nearly 30 more years.

So right away I am linking the question of space/place/room to the notion of recognition—the space womxn are given in the minds of others—regardless of gender. For a room of one’s own is absolutely essential but it’s not enough—one must not be confined to that room. I think it’s fair to say that womxn today have more room to create than ever before. Still, many womxn are denied access and even when they have it, claiming those spaces means sacrifice for womxn in ways it may not for men.

But even after a womxn has physical, mental, temporal space to create–after she has made sacrifices to do that work—has proclaimed her practice worthy of the support of friends, of family—there is still space in the minds of others to think of. As Audre Lorde explains it, there is the fact that, in breaking silence, in speaking for herself, a womxn (especially a Black, lesbian warrior poet, like Audre Lorde), may become the face of someone else’s fear.

I think of the size and shape of Dickinson’s poems versus Whitman’s. How many womxn get good at saying what they must with as few words as possible—not because they can’t go on—but because they know they have only a moment before the eyes glaze over.

I like that you ask about the body in space—which makes me think about the space inside the body. We need freedom within the body to negotiate spaces outside the body. But trauma is stored in the body and can cause it to lock—can make the body a prison.

The image of the madwoman in the attic absolutely resonates—gaslighting leads to madness. You also mention excavation as a metaphor for this work. I love this because I’m also a licensed builder and of course to begin you must first, literally, break ground. Drafting this book, I often had visions of womxn below ground—hands clawing through earth and stone—mouths filled with silt. There is a line midway through the book—But softly we hum feeling worser and worser slowly learning our mum’s genius is buried in the cellar. There is also a crudeness to the medium I used—the corrective fluid—which must be worked with quickly for it sets up fast. In fact, the liquid in the bottle thickens faster than it can be used, and when it thickens it creates a texture like mud. With this mud, I buried the source text in order to unearth the other.

And now I’m wondering what a psychologist would say about the difference between going mad in an attic and being buried alive? Certainly this work was helpful to my own mental health.

with Amanda Newell at Plume

[Genevieve]

My review is here: https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/...

[E.A. Midnight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her Read: A Graphic Poem is the definition of breaking the literary mold as Jennifer Sperry Steinorth incorporates her litany of talents in this erasure narrative. The way she plucks out story and message in this work is poetics that transcend the traditional, a reclaiming of what is means to be woman. Her re-imagination of the pages and the agency she takes back, not only for herself but all women, is empowering. The poetry that she crafts is palpable and evocative, sometimes so much so, you are left simply sitting with a page thinking what it means for you, how it begins to live in your body, how it evolves. There are not many hybrid, multi-modal books out there that can push through contemporary literary styles and succeed, but this one does and does and then some. It is a phenomenal experience, and I strongly encourage anyone and everyone to go purchase and enjoy this work. I am honored to have this transformative book prominently displayed on my bookshelf.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is explained by both the publisher and the author as an "erasure." Although that might be a way to send readers to an approximate imaginative space, I don't think it's the right category. This book is something else entirely. Yes, some of it is erasure, but even more of it is collage, is art, is even sowing! I don't remember ever seeing anything quite like it.

It is a book impassioned by RAGE. Herbert Read could write a book that held sway for a couple of decades called "The Meaning of Art," and in that book there was no representative woman (until a much later edition) and the pronoun "she" was used only once. Even the old explanations -- "A book of its time" -- isn't true. And wasn't true when it was written. 1931. It was willful, chosen ignorance.

So Steinorth attacks the book itself. The very object. She cuts and colors and, yes, erases. She adds thread and redesigns the objets d'art that Read used as examples. She sows (women's work) pages together when she feels the necessary urge. And she erases most of it. She destroys the book itself in a visceral attack on the whole idea of the codex. And then the results are photographed and put back together. The result is beautiful.

And then we are to understand the remaining words as a poem (or poems, I'm not quite sure). Throughout Read's book, Steinorth found "Impressionism" or words related, and she erased most of that to "Imp" -- which becomes the presence of the woman under all of this. The Imp is a trickster, constantly messing with the remnants of Read's criticism. That is both important and fun.

But I'll admit that I have a harder time finding the poetry in the project. But there are many moments that grab my attention, and are often quite moving. That makes me think that I still haven't spent enough time with this "book," that I still have many things to discover in it, once I learn how to read it. Here's one lovely little passage that comes out of a profoundly erased page. I'll guess at the lineation:

if
I describe sweetness
(leaves, tendrils, flowers animals
children).

as
a dreadful and
vindictive plague

Let that be a a plea for intimacy.

And there are many more moments like that to discover in the book/text/painting/whatever that Steinorth has created.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible experience of a book — expanded my thinking of what poetry is and can do.

[J.Istsfor Manity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic multilayered artifact. Incisive cut-up and erasure poems, and collage. Would love to see the originals in 3-dimensions. 2021/2024.

“so
we are
made
made
in pain to pose
and shimmer”
— Jennifer Sperry Steinorth / Her Read

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not so much a book as an experience. A truly exceptional work of art.