susan howe | Erica Mena

"All good poetry is experimental"

January 20, 2015 by Erica Mena

I recently had the humbling experience of doing poorly on an interview for something I really wanted. I actually interview terribly, so it’s not really surprising to me, but still disappointing nonetheless. One of the members of the committee interviewing me is a poet I’ve admired for a long time, who’s work I’ve studied and taught, and I’m sure that didn’t make things any easier, nerves-wise. One of the questions posed to me that I hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t even ever […]

Categories: Poetry • Tags: citizen, claudia rankine, experimental poetry, poetry, susan howe

Singularities by Susan Howe

February 5, 2014 by Erica Mena

Since Susan Howe came to read last week, I’ve been thinking that I really must immediately read everything she’s ever written starting now go. Before hearing her read I’d read her major works: The Europe of Trusts (which I’m planning on re-reading because it was almost a decade ago I read it); My Emily Dickinson. Recently, you’ll remember perhaps, I read That This. So I went to my local friendly university library and got every book they had of hers. […]

Categories: Reading Journal • Tags: experimetal poetry, innovative poetry, poetry, reading journal, singularities, susan howe

That This by Susan Howe

October 13, 2013 by Erica Mena

This book has three sections, each remarkably different from one another, and yet connected by a recognizable poetic voice and interest. The first, “The Disappearance Approach” is about the unexpected death of her second husband. Add this to my saddest-reading-list-ever; it fits alongside Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking and Goldman’s Say Her Name. But these shortish prose-blocks are distinctly poetry, where the others are memoir. Of course, the lines are not quite so clear-cut between the two, but her frequent […]

Categories: Reading Journal • Tags: mourning, poetry, susan howe, that this

Erica Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

Tag: susan howe

"All good poetry is experimental"

Singularities by Susan Howe

That This by Susan Howe