This month is Women’s History Month, so through the end of March, I will share a daily female poet from history along with 2 poems they have written. While this is a fun way to celebrate women, I am also using it as an opportunity to educate myself more on the history and people of poetry. Even if poetry is a foreign language to you, this is also meant to be a way to learn history behind a form of art. So that’s 2 things you can get out of it – history and art! For day four, I chose Susan Howe. Her poetry is often based on history, and she uses the typography of her words to form her poems. She spent time teaching at the State University of New York-Buffalo and held the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities. The Poetry Foundation has an article full of historical information and inspiration for Howe. You can read it in full here. The first poem I chose for Howe is “Cabbage Gardens." This poem is a great example for the way she structures her typography. You can read the poem here. The second poem is “from A Bibliography of the King’s Book or, Eikon Basilike." It is part of a larger collection of poetry that follows King Charles I. Two moving lines from this poem are, "Legal righteousness makes us servants" and "Pride cannot bow." You can read it in full here. Photo from Poetry Foundation
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