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"Marie Howe has reinvented the elegy as a poem for the living, a poem of instruction, how we're educated by grief, brought to ourselves and our senses as we are 'gripped by ... cherishing.' These conversational lyrics—open, available—ring with the clarity of struck speech, and their astonishing intensity wakes us to our ordinary crisis: here we are now, in the plain everyday, which is where any sort of illumination, any possible transcendence will take place. Scrupulously attentive, rigorously self-questioning, What the Living Do is an achievement of remarkable power." Mark Doty
reviews
"This compassionate memorial to illness and the loss of Howe's brother, John, and other friends ably depicts the growth and development of personal bonds against which 'post-modern brokenness' is measured... This thoughtful analysis of elements of grief ('a living remedy') will perhaps help to ease trauma of death, as does Robert Frost's 'Home Burial,' but full comprehension of 'cherishing' and pain after 'the wake and the funeral' seems impossible. The best of these empathetic poems demonstrate a longing for wholeness and appreciation of the 'terrified and radiant' mysteries of silence. Sharing 'a secret, unrecoverable history' of father, brothers, sisters, and friends, Howe creates the first draft of a contemporary woman's spiritual biography." Library Journal
"[What the Living Do] struggles to reckon with a beloved brother's death from AIDS as well as a rough-and-tumble childhood. Howe finds the flash point of illumination in the chaos of grief and murky memory. This book has become a classic text in coping with life, love and loss. How do we save each other, or how do we watch helplessly? How can we live with our memories or with losing them, or each other? Howe is the rare poet who offers answers to these questions."
Starred Review for The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, Publishers Weekly, Brenda Shaughnessy
"What the Living Do ... is a deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel."
Boston Globe
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