Susan Howe on her Emily Dickinsons
Sunday 20 May, 2012
4pm, $0
The Artist's Institute
163 Eldridge Street
Torn envelopes, scraps of wrapping paper, and pages from notebooks—Emily Dickinson wrote her prose and poetry on fragments of all types. Her words, marks, and strokes on paper can start to look like drawings.
In 1985, the poet Susan Howe wrotea book about Emily Dickinson, called My Emily Dickinson. She describes Dickinson as an expert in standing incorners, in secret listening, and in silent understanding—the vital distinction between concealment and revelation is the essence of her work. She writes about the flow of contradictions and the liberty of interruptions that exist within the structure of each line. They are poems about death and immortality, sensuality and sadism, love and trauma, liberty and exile.
Her Emily Dickinson is a poet for whom a tear is a intellectual thing.
We know that Emily Dickinson was reclusive. She rarely left the house. But she is an artist whose solitary activity turns withdrawal into acts of delicate precision, and she invented a grammar that allowedfor language to be forceful and hesitant at the same time. She made the marginal masterful, and vice-versa.
Her notes and drafts are intersections of privacy and practice. She maintaineda large correspondence with a variety of friends, to whom she sent several different versions of her poems. She would changethe slope and stutter of her handwriting to reflect the subject of her poems and letters. She would fit her thoughts onto the triangular fold of an envelope.
Susan Howe recently pointed out that text and textile come from the Latin textus and textere—to weave. Language is that which is woven, and Dickinson uses poetry to undo familiarities woven into thestructure of a sentence. She salts words with fire.
On May 20th, 2012, Susan Howetalks about fragments, drafts, drawings, envelopes, and her Emily Dickinsons.
This event is organized and hosted by Mary Simpson.
In 1985, the poet Susan Howe wrotea book about Emily Dickinson, called My Emily Dickinson. She describes Dickinson as an expert in standing incorners, in secret listening, and in silent understanding—the vital distinction between concealment and revelation is the essence of her work. She writes about the flow of contradictions and the liberty of interruptions that exist within the structure of each line. They are poems about death and immortality, sensuality and sadism, love and trauma, liberty and exile.
Her Emily Dickinson is a poet for whom a tear is a intellectual thing.
We know that Emily Dickinson was reclusive. She rarely left the house. But she is an artist whose solitary activity turns withdrawal into acts of delicate precision, and she invented a grammar that allowedfor language to be forceful and hesitant at the same time. She made the marginal masterful, and vice-versa.
Her notes and drafts are intersections of privacy and practice. She maintaineda large correspondence with a variety of friends, to whom she sent several different versions of her poems. She would changethe slope and stutter of her handwriting to reflect the subject of her poems and letters. She would fit her thoughts onto the triangular fold of an envelope.
Susan Howe recently pointed out that text and textile come from the Latin textus and textere—to weave. Language is that which is woven, and Dickinson uses poetry to undo familiarities woven into thestructure of a sentence. She salts words with fire.
On May 20th, 2012, Susan Howetalks about fragments, drafts, drawings, envelopes, and her Emily Dickinsons.
This event is organized and hosted by Mary Simpson.