"This morning I stumbled upon the poetry of Marie Howe, and once again I'm humbled by the power of words on a page, and a writer's ability to bestow meaning to feelings that would otherwise remain forever trapped inside me. In a recent podcast interview, the poet Marie Howe was speaking of the power of words to reveal the human condition, and how the older she gets, the more of herself she unmasks through her writing. She later said, 'to be able to move through your life transparently would be a relief.'"
More in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanpaul-bedard/in-the-company-of-words-and-strangers_b_5762190.html
Reigning New York State Poet Marie Howe visits the Writers Institute on Tuesday, October 21st with fellow poets Edward Hirsch and Kimiko Hahn.
For a full schedule of events, visit our webpage: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/#.VA26El_D_s1
For more about NY State Poet Marie Howe: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_marie12.html
Monday, September 8, 2014
NYS Poet Marie Howe in the Huffington Post
Friday, May 2, 2014
NY State "Favorite Poem" Essay Winners Announced
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
New York State sponsors Poetry Unites writing contest
best short essay about a favorite poem
Read More......
Friday, September 13, 2013
Two Poets Laureate in Conversation this Tuesday 9/17
Marie Howe, New York State Poet (2012-2014) and Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-2014) will read from their work and discuss the role of poetry in society on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in the Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center in downtown Albany. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., the poets will present an informal seminar in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the University at Albany uptown campus. The events are free and open to the public, and are cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and Friends of the New York State Library.
Marie Howe and Sydney Lea, reigning state poets of New York and Vermont, will present a joint reading and discuss the role of poetry in today's society.
Appointed State Poet (2012 – 2014) by Governor Andrew Cuomo under the auspices of the NYS Writers Institute, Marie Howe is the author of three collections of poetry: The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008), What the Living Do (1997), and The Good Thief (1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the National Poetry Series. The Rochester native and New York City resident is also the past recipient of the Lavan Younger Poets Prize of the American Academy of Poets. In 1995, she coedited the bestselling anthology, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (with Michael Klein), which helped many AIDS victims "find their voices" as poets and storytellers. She currently teaches at NYU where she is launching a Fall 2013 course entitled "Poetry Everywhere," an immersive production class which seeks to put poetry in unexpected New York City public spaces.
Howe is widely admired for poetry that seeks answers to metaphysical questions in ordinary day-to-day experience. In her work, little incidents and inconsequential memories help to shed light on the nature of the soul and the self, as well as the meaning of life, death, love, pain, hope, despair, sin, virtue, solitude, community, impermanence and the eternal. Playwright Eve Ensler said of her most recent collection, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, "These poems made me gasp. Each one a revelation, a lifeline, a domestic galaxy. This is the poetry of our times, a guide to living on the brink of the mystical and the mundane."
Appointed Poet Laureate by Governor Peter Shumlin under the auspices of the Vermont Arts Council, Sydney Lea is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including I Was Thinking of Beauty (2013); Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets, Two Lives (with Delaware Poet Laureate Fleda Brown, 2013); Pursuit of a Wound (2000), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; To the Bone: New and Selected Poems (1996), a co-winner of the Poet's Prize; and Prayer for the Little City (1991). The American Book Review said of To the Bone, "It's past time that this poet's memorable best work should be known and praised and analyzed and loved as well as Frost's is."
Much of his work focuses on the mystery of the natural world and the physical details of life in a rural setting. He recently published the essay collection, A North Country Life: Tales of Woodsmen, Waters, and Wildlife (2013). The Wall Street Journal reviewer said, "Sydney Lea is a fisherman, a hunter, a philosopher, a trainer of bird dogs, an interpreter of the past and a collector of stories. This abundance of experience shows up to good effect.... He writes memorably. His stories ring true."
The founder and long-time editor of the influential literary magazine, The New England Review, Lea is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Foundations.
Lea is a dedicated environmental activist and serves currently as President of Downeast Lakes Land Trust, an organization dedicated to creating a million-acre wildlife preserve on the border between Maine and the province of New Brunswick. He also serves as President/Treasurer of the adult literacy organization, Central Vermont Adult Basic Education.
For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
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Related Media
- Marie Howe, New York State Poet Photo: Brad Fowler: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/52174/Howebw_16251_0.jpg
- Sydney Lea, Vermont Poet Laureate Photo: Bruce Paul
Richards: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/52175/syd_lea_at_home_with_birch_16251_0.JPG
Marie Howe's Mary Magdalene Poem
Here's one of the best loved poems by official New York State Poet Marie Howe, who visits this coming Tuesday, 9/17. Like many of Howe's poems, it is inspired by Christian tradition and Catholic experience:
MAGDALENE–THE SEVEN DEVILS
by Marie Howe“Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out” —Luke 8:2.
The first was that I was very busy.
The second — I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.
The third — I worried.
The fourth – envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too – its face. And the ant – its bifurcated body.
Poem continues on the eclectic spirituality website, Patheos, which Newsweek in 2011 called one of "21 Ways To Be Smarter in 2011". Read the rest of the poem: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/michaboyett/2012/04/poem-a-day-friday-marie-howe/
Read more about Marie Howe's upcoming visit to UAlbany here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_lea13.html Read More......
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Marie Howe comments on Sharon Olds
Our reigning State Poet, Marie Howe, comments (officially) on Sharon Olds' winning the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Stag's Leap:
"Sharon olds has
been writing life altering poems so deeply and well and so long it's not
possible to imagine american poetry without her."
(Sent from her iPhone)
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Marie Howe: The Poetry of Eating
Read more of our own New York State Poet laureate Marie Howe's restaurant review of The French Laundry in the New York Times: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/a-poet-at-the-french-laundry/?smid=tw-nytdining
Read more about Marie Howe here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_marie12.html Read More......
Friday, August 31, 2012
Marie Howe, New NY State Poet, reads a poem
The poem was first published in the New Yorker in January 2008.
The Star Market
The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday.
An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout
breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.
Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and
hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them:
shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if the Star Market
had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in
with the rest of them—sour milk, bad meat—
looking for cereal and spring water.
Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car
in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have
been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept
out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands
and knees begging for mercy.
If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought,
could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/01/14/080114po_poem_howe#ixzz259WQ51xu Read More......
Saturday, January 17, 2009
New Writers Institute Video Postings on You Tube
The NYS Writers Institute has posted a run of short video clips of recent visitors.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NYSWritersInstitute
The materials are unvarnished, without setup. The idea is that you, the viewer, can eavesdrop on a conversation, or stumble upon an author presenting work.
The mix is eclectic, by design. A few poets, an historian, a filmmaker, short story writers, musicians, novelists. Anne Enright, Garrison Keillor, Li-Young Lee, Mary Gordon, Andre Dubus III, Frank McCourt, Major Jackson, etc, etc. A fun clip of One Ring Zero covering a Paul Auster piece. Frank Bidart talking about his first book. Garrison Keillor remembering the encyclopedia. Daniel Cassidy on Irish slang. Marie Howe on the Star Market.
There are too many of clips of authors simply reading their work on the web. We think it's more interesting to talk with them.
There are 18 clips up now, but they will rotate, and there will be more to come. Just a sample of one of the richest audio-video archives of contemporary literature.
Stay tuned.