Benjamin's Response to Howe

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Susan Howe

Susan Howe both writes poems and poetical prose...of sorts. In Midnight, she manages to combine the poem with the memoir, but doesn’t make Midnight come off as narcissistically personal. Howe combines history, personal history, and literary illusions to create...something. What that is, of course, I’m not entirely sure!
Howe’s ultimate objective, however, despite her myriad number of themes, is to hammer home the idea that a book, a collection, regardless of what it is, is inherently personal. A text is unique to an individual, and not necessarily just to the author, or the reader. In the case of Midnight, Howe attempts to create a book in the traditional of her family’s own “constructed” books, of sorts. In recollections of her family, Howe states,

“My mother’s close relations treated their books as transitional objects (judging by a few survivors in my possession) to be held, loved, carried around, meddled with, abandoned, sometimes mutilated. They contain dedications, private messages, marginal annotations, hints, snapshots, press cuttings, warnings*” (60).

Howe goes further to state:

“Every mortal has a non-communicating material self––a waistcoat or embroidered doublet” (60).

Howe connects her idea of the personalized text to another theme of the book, that of the textile, something that come through most in the first part of the text, “Bed Hangings I,” which will be enough to make you never want to hear mention of drapes or bed hangings ever again.
The most meaning of the text (or at least, the clearest) comes through in Howe’s prose sections, heavily on history as well as personal reflections that occasionally diverge into the completely incomprehensible. Still, this does not mean that Howe’s poem sections do not contain any meaning. To the contrary, “Bed Hangings 1” alludes to philosophy, religion, and various individuals referenced and expanded upon in the later prose.
In these prose sections, we see Howe fulfilling her family legacy, of taking a text and making it her own. We see “private messages” in her references to Alice and Wonderland, one of the most clever and obscure examples being on page 64 in the photograph of a torn up newspaper (the phrase “looking glass” can be seen in the top and middle of the image, above the picture of a woman), and “warnings” such as “Go away and do something else, grave robber” (60). Numerous pictures, paintings and pictures of textiles are mixed throughout the text.
In terms of history in the text, Howe utilizes real historical figures and events as a sort of inroads to her own personal experience. This in turn allows the reader to know of her personal history which leads to to her thesis of the personalized book. A very roundabout way of doing things, but sufficient nonetheless. For example, to speak of her own insomnia, Howe commonly references MacBeth, or Frederick Law Olmstead, and so forth. To lead into the history of her family member’s unique way of enriching (or defacing, depending on how you look at it) their books, Howe notes that figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson did similar things to books, ripping or removing pages and assembling an entirely new text of particularly special quotes.
Howe’s misdirection and escapades into the incomprehensible or really “out there” stuff, however, feel like a distraction from her main themes. However, I went along with Howe, stuck with her through some of the more bizarre sections of the text, and feel as if I got most of what she was trying to say. I will admit that attempting to read Howe isn’t easy. There’s no real easy way to enter into this text. It’s something I simply had to jump into, and sort of find a direction after I got about fifty pages in. In this sense then, The Midnight feels like a great ego trip, and we’re along for the ride. The Midnight is Howe’s, it defines her and it has meaning that can only be known to her. But that doesn’t mean we can’t derive meaning from it as well. Howe encourages us, or at least me, to want to make a text like this of my own!

Caroline's Response to Howe

Susan Howe's The Midnight offers something completely unique to the world of poetry. To put it most plainly, it is a collage of written and visual art that works to challenge the reader's mind and redefine traditional poetics. It is divided up into five sections, three that appear to be poetry, and two that lean more towards prose. This overall structure as well as the structures of each section seem to be purposeful, as there are repetitions to the aesthetics. The poetry sections, for example, are uniform in appearance, each page containing a very short poem right in the center of the page, with sizeable margins on every side. Stylistically, Howe is rather mysterious. Particularly as we encounter a poetic section first, it is very hard to get to know Howe in this work. Through the prose sections, we start to get much more background information and learn a bit about Howe and her family, but still she is very much a mystery to us. She writes about family, books, insomnia, sleep, bed hangings, images, and so on to the point that the reader starts to feel as though some sense is being formed around these themes, as though they are the support beams to this wildly shaky and unstable piece.

Howe seems to have incredibly clear and focused intentions with this collection, intentions that, although obviously present, aren't the easiest to articulate. First and foremost, she is challenging everything, the reader, other writers, art, poetry, literary conventions, etc. She establishes her credibility by alluding to a number of her literary predecessors, such as Shakespeare and Emerson. By calling to these universally recognizable names, Howe is placing herself among them, inherently drawing comparisons between her work and theirs. Once she "proves" herself in this way, Howe's genius is able to really shine through. One way in which she challenges tradition is by the collage arrangement of this book. By mixing medias, from prose to poetry, and photos to drawings, she opens our minds and asks us to question that which we previously considered poetry. The fact that photos that are in completely different sections of the book relate to each other, that themes span across the piece, forces us to open our minds and change how we read. In this book, things aren't necessarily sequential, they don't form one constant timeline, but rather Howe ask that we take note of connecting themes and events over the entire collection. As readers, we must adjust to this and work to connect all of the pieces in order to find meaning. Another, perhaps more basic way that she challenges poetry is by ignoring basic traditions and rules about punctuation. Not only does she leave her poetry sections pretty much completely without punctuation but she also chooses not to title the poems in any obvious ways. There are places where italics and spaces seem to suggest the beginning of a new thought but for the most part the reader has to formulate some way of deciding where one thing ends and the next begins.

Upon completing the whole collection, I think Howe is quite successful in this piece. More than anything else, I felt that she wasn't necessarily asking us to completely understand her or this book. I think more than understanding, she was looking to appeal to our curiosity, to make us question, search, and make connections between different forms of art all occurring in one text. Most apparent to m is that she must have worked extremely hard to achieve this level of "weird," that she put an immense amount of effort into deconstructing traditional poetry and creating something totally unique. In these ways, I think her successes are obvious. Howe has managed to intrigue us perhaps even when we aren't quite sure what we are being intrigued by. She held my attention even in parts where I felt frustrated and lost because somehow I knew that the pay off would be well worth the struggle. And for me, it certainly was.

Renate's Response to Howe

And I thought Williams was weird. Looking back on it now, I find that Williams was easier to understand than Howe's "The Midnight."

Susan Howe's The Midnight is a book with three sections of poetry and two of prose. I would say that the poetry is relatively uniform, in that each page has just a small block of text, and it is difficult to tell where one poem ends and another begins. The prose sections are a bit easier to read because of their grammatical correctness (except for a few spots which remind me of the way Williams would stop mid-sentence and start up with a new idea). Upon first--and maybe even second--reading of this book, it is difficult to understand, though there are a few main themes running throughout.

I think the theme of insomnia, sleep, and dreams is a very prevalent theme and one that could explain (to some extent) how the book is written. For example, there are many connections that can be mad throughout this book, but the two similar circumstances or references may be on two different, far-apart pages. The poetry sections make hardly any sense at all, and some are even written in an older English, making them even more difficult just to read. When half-asleep, it often happens that people write something they think is amazing; then they wake up and read it the next morning and it makes no sense at all. Howe's poetry sections feel like that, though I'm sure she must have been somewhat conscious of what she was doing:

"For here we are here
B E D H A N G I N G S
daylight does not reach
Vast depth on the wall
Neophyte" (pg 3)

This is the very first page of her poetry. It looks very much as if she had cut out a block of text from another work and pasted it in her book. Actually, this page of poetry has the theme of sleep as well as fabrics/textiles. "Bedhangings" can refer to the curtains surrounding a bed as well as the bed, itself, being a place for sleep. "daylight does not reach" could point to darkness or maybe the bedhangings staying closed to allow the person inside to continue sleeping even though daylight is pouring through the window.

Truthfully, I don't really know what Howe was trying to accomplish in this book. There are references to many different literary works, as well as different dictionaries and theatrical plays. She talks about her family, most specifically her mother and her uncle, John, who owned one of the books she continually references (The Master of Ballantrae). Her Irish heritage comes into play. Even in our class discussions, we could not decide on one central theme; there were many. I guess insomnia is the one I can most understand, just because it give a possible reason as to the strange way in which this book was written.

So, I would say, if this book wasn't meant to be understood, then Howe accomplished her goal.

Richard's Response to Howe

As someone who has experienced insomnia firsthand, and who has seen what insomnia can do to a person's writing, I can safely say that Howe is very true to form to that in "The Midnight." While it is a very well organized book, with every shift from topic to topic and with every picture having some sort of relevance, whether it be to something from earlier or later in the book or a reference to her life, or to her state of mind. In this way, it's actually a lot like Williams.

Williams' work was very informal, feeling more like a lecture that the professor didn't prepare for. It feels loose and disorganized, which makes it a very fun read, but rather difficult to understand unless the reader takes it slow. But Williams doesn't really throw in a lot of references. Instead, is more or less just musing about language as a whole, and while it does sound more like a rambling conversation, Williams does keep the topic centered completely on one topic.

Howe, on the other hand, has some focus issues, once again displaying the inability of someone who is sleep-deprived to focus completely on a single topic. The book is actually quite contradictory in this way though: The organization of the book makes sense, if you actually have time to sit down and think about the placement of each section and the pictures and poems contained therein. However, a casual glance makes it seem like there is no real rhyme or reason to what is being said. To make it even more confusing is the fact that Howe does not focus on a single topic, instead treating the book as an all-encompassing semi-biographical work, talking about herself, her upbringing, her family, poetry, language, insomnia, and so on and so forth, mixing them, switching between them, and while some of it sounds like a straight analysis or biographical statement, most of it can also sound like philosophical musings or ramblings.

In fact, the game is so heavy on rambling references, that it actually makes it hard to read straight through, since Howe loves to insert reference after reference to different literature and cultural ideas, almost at the speed of one per sentence. For someone who likes to look up references that they are not very familiar with makes this a very, VERY slow read.

It's a crazy book, something that represents the absolute frustration, but mild joy that one can experience when under sleep deprivation.

Amanda Bissonette- Howe Response

Susan Howe’s book The Midnight discusses many aspects of the self. Howe discusses many aspects of herself and her life that have contributed to the way she lives and her writing. These aspects include her family, her relationship with books, and sleep deprivation. In this book Howe discusses the different themes of her book in two different ways, poems and prose-like sections. She switches between the poems and the prose sections throughout the entire book. Howe also uses illustrations in the prose sections. Howe’s book has so many themes that there are different routes a reader can take when looking at this book.

Howe’s many themes allow a reader to take different paths when reading and in turn Howe has created a piece with different meanings that can be interpreted different ways by the readers. Along with the self, Howe has created the themes of insomnia, sleep, and dreams, books as objects, and family and Irish heritage. Howe does a very good job incorporating all of these central themes into the book and makes sure that they all connect and the reader is left with a better understanding of her book as a whole. “My mother’s close relations treated their books as transitional objects (judging by a few survivors remaining in my possession) to be held, loved, carried around, meddled with, abandoned, sometimes mutilated. They contain dedications, private messages, marginal annotations, hints, snapshots, press cuttings, warnings-scissor work.” (Howe, 60). This is one of the examples of how Howe ties together multiple themes to make connections. Here she is connecting books as objects and family. Howe’s structure of the book allows for more of a connection to be made. The reader must reference back to understand parts of the book, especially Howe’s illustrations. There is almost never a place in the book where an illustration matches up with the surrounding text, but can be found later on. This forces the reader to make connections and treat the book as a whole piece of work and not separate poems. At first, this may cause confusion for the readers because they may be used to reading poetry that flows smoothly, whereas Howe’s poems and proses seem somewhat jagged and random. By the end of the book, the reader may be able to understand the book as a whole better because they were able to go back and make the necessary connections.

I felt complete confusion when I first read the book, but by the end I started to make connections and have a clearer understanding of what Howe wanted me to see. I feel as though if the reader is willing to make the effort and work through the confusion, he or she can get a lot out of it. Although the structure of the book is a little out of the ordinary, especially when you are asked to think of poetry, I could not picture Howe writing in any other way. I don’t think that I as a reader would have a gotten the same out of the book if it was written in a traditional style.

Birdwatching in Wartime Response--Kelsey M.

Jeff Thomson's Birdwatching in Wartime largely follows a journey through the rain forests of South America. Often, the poems are heavily laden with imagery pertaining to the biodiversity of the rain forest, and South American culture. This includes religion, history and the frequent inclusion of Spanish words or phrases. Thomson paints a vivid picture of the South American rain forest, one that is both rich and highly complex, particularly in "Landscape with Footnotes" Thomson also meditates on the nature of language and death, such as in "Twin" and violence in "Ars Poetica with Pain." These themes readily enrich Thomson's views on the South American landscape.

Thomson's book most readily points at the world in its descriptive poems. He readily references the Inca, bees, plants, cartoons, endless birds, Christianity and the Bible, Pizarro, Metaphor. Many poems are rich in imagery, like "Birdwatching in Wartime" or "Landscape with Flooded Forest" which are clear depictions of the rain forest. However, there are poems that do not fall so easily into this category, such as "Landscape with Footnotes." The piece is comprised solely of footnotes which discuss bits of rain forest lore, native animals, South American history. while these footnotes are quite blatantly references to the world, the piece is of such a unique structure that it immediately calls attention tot he placement and wording of the footnotes, and their juxtaposition.

I did enjoy Birdwatching in Wartime for its rich descriptions and the unique anecdotes, but the work as a whole was not as united as I expected it to be. I think that with our recent readings, i have become accustomed to reading books where the poems follow a clear theme; the holistic purpose of the work are easily perceived. In some ways Birdwatching in Wartime read as more as some of Thomson's complied work than as a unified collection. While some themes carried throughout, there were poems that just plain stuck out, such as "American Pastoral" in the first section of the book; I felt it was entirely out of place with a message/intent that was quite different from much of the book. In this way, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the work as a whole, though the poems individually did not disappoint.

Thomson

Jeffrey Thomson’s book Birdwatching in Wartime is an intriguing glimpse into a rainforest atmosphere, which mixes in details about specific animals and plants that can be found in the landscape, such as “tambaqui”, “tapir”, “hornbills” and “bougainvillea.” This book is structured into five different parts, each poem thick and rich with vocabulary of Spanish words, incredible sceneries and animal encounters, all written from one perspective of the single narrator. The style of each poem varies; the first section is pretty much standard poetry, or what we could consider “normal”. The whole second section is a long, 18-page poem that varies in stanza structure and use of punctuation. The fourth section is almost the same, with it all being one poem, except this has a pattern of each page having three stanzas with three lines each, making the reading flow, as opposed to the choppiness and edge to the non-patterned poems of the three sections before this one. To fully understand the context of these poems, I had to be near a computer or have people explain it to me in class, because there are animals I’ve never even heard of before, and connections that I couldn’t quite tie in with my knowledge of the South American rainforest.

After reading, it became clear to me that Thomson was using language to look at the world. Though you couldn’t begin to classify this book as solely “clear” glass or “stained”. This collection has a very good mix of both. From the first poem, “Landscape with Swelling and Hives”, the sheer volume of words on the page makes the reading slower, and the poem more dense, just like Thomson implied in class: the rainforest is dense, so the poems should be, too. He also said in class that over four thousand (or was it forty thousand?) types of insects were found in a single tree. It’s no wonder there were an incredible amount of layers to each poem. The rainforest itself is composed of layers. I think this book was successful in its attempt to convey thickness and complexity of nature. It really made me dig for meaning, which I think is a great discovery for readers. Even with the poem, “Twin”, where it doesn’t necessarily take place in the jungle, there is a sense of being universal: “They exist together / …witched together by possibility’s spell.” (21). This idea of a split person is interesting, because there is a light and dark side to everyone, and that idea is one that is a prominent idea of Thomson’s. There are these parallels of good and bad with every situation, which is the main theme I got out of the book. Even in “Ars Poetica with Pain”, it rivals Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam with Greek Mythology. The cartoon, in general, is innocent, but the context of Yosemite Sam being hung is a sense of harsh reality. Thomson is great at that duality complex, such as when I mentioned before that this collection is both clear and stained glass.

My evaluation is simple: this book really didn’t have too much of an effect on me as a reader. I’ve never been to South America, nor did this book really make me even want to go there. Though, having Thomson in class sparked ideas of my own, specifically when he said the quote that “Only gods can say what something is. Writers can only say what it looks like.” He has the mind-set of Williams when he said that. I have to give him credit, he does have an interesting and unique style, but I probably wouldn’t have read the book if it weren’t assigned for class. Thomson’s poetry deals with too much of nature sometimes, and I would love to see the retrospective reflection on the aftermath of the trip, not always being there and experiencing it. Also, my interest in poetry wanes if it is too dense and Thomson’s poetry has a lot of words. I’m more of an Armantrout kind of person. Although, I do enjoy the duality he brings-- it shows that life is complex, and so poetry should be, too.