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New York Times
2 days ago
- General
- New York Times
Fanny Howe, Poet of Unsettled Dreams, Is Dead at 84
Fanny Howe, a poet whose words mined her own complicated personal history, expressing pathos and beauty in a life of upheavals, died on Tuesday in Lincoln, Mass. She was 84. Her death, in a hospice, was confirmed by her daughter, the writer Danzy Senna, who said the cause was complications of a previous surgery. Ms. Howe's heritage and her life story — one of contradiction and struggle as a scion of Boston Brahmins, a civil rights activist and the mother of biracial children — shaped a discursive verse style that veiled sharp edges and melancholy resolutions. She won numerous prizes, from the Poetry Foundation among other organizations, for a prolific output that included more than two dozen books of poetry and more than 20 works of fiction, as well as memoirs, essays and children's books. In 2014, she was a National Book Award finalist for the poetry collection 'Second Childhood.' Her words were often rooted in concrete experience; 'the basis of Howe's poetry is watchfulness, as from a train window,' the poet Dan Chiasson wrote in a 2019 appraisal of her work in The New Yorker. But the pang of life's mixed blessing is never far from what might be an alluring surface. In her long poem 'The Definitions,' she wrote: 'There is a wonderful kidnapped hunted raped and betrayed girl/ In fairy tales. She has a name, but the vowels and subjects/ Around can't be switched to fit.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Fanny Howe, acclaimed writer of poetry and novels, dies at 84
And she did in 'At the beginning, I would write a novel and then some poetry,' she said in Advertisement Ms. Howe, who both drew and departed from a family literary heritage that reached deep into Boston Brahmin and Irish traditions, died Tuesday in hospice care. Health issues had emerged and escalated quickly over the past couple of weeks upon her return home from a visit to Ireland, where she attended the opening of one of her late mother's plays. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up She was 84 and had lived in Cambridge for many years, after decades filled with a series of moves that could be as peripatetic as her writing. 'I think in the widest sense, she's really kind of a poet's poet,' said the Advertisement Danzy Senna, a daughter of Ms. Howe who is In 2009, the Poetry Foundation honored Ms. Howe's lifetime achievement with its prestigious Five of her novels were collected into a single volume titled 'Radical Love.' Some book critics suggested those novels were at least adjacent to autobiography. Ms. Howe sidestepped that description, writing instead in an author's note: 'I hope this collection will contribute to a literary tradition that resists distinctions between poetry and fiction as one way to save history from the doom of duality.' Taking on subjects that ranged from the complexities of families to politics and race relations in Boston and anywhere else, Ms. Howe 'spent her life interested in the lowly, those who were left out. She never looked away,' said 'She was truly one of the great poets of Boston and Cambridge,' he said. 'Her work is of the highest order.' In poems and prose Ms. Howe 'had a terrific ear — the sound of her work is great. If you read it aloud, it's wonderful,' said Advertisement Ms. Howe, she added, 'had both an interesting awareness of human failing, including her own, and a kind of endless interest in the world.' Sometimes called an experimental writer — 'She was funny, and she was fun, and kind of mischievous,' Armantrout said. 'I remember her laugh,' she said, adding that at gatherings of friends, Ms. Howe would 'sit at one end of the table and laugh raucously.' Fanny Quincy Howe was born in Buffalo on Oct. 15, 1940, and moved with her mother and older sister to Cambridge soon after, while her father served in the Army during World War II. Her mother, Mary Manning, was an Irish playwright, novelist, and actress. A founder of The Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, she counted among her close friends the Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett. Ms. Howe's father, Her older sister, Susan Howe of Guilford, Conn., Advertisement Already keenly observant as a young girl, Ms. Howe was attentive to the differences between her life and what others endured. 'As I began to see injustice close up, I was filled with a desire to understand what made people who had suffered for nothing want to go on living,' She added that she became 'uncomfortable with what was given to me as a birthright and what later came to be understood (by me and my culture) as meaning: White. White meant adult, condescending, cold, pale, driven, individualist, judging, and theoretical. White meant distant, detached, ironic, skeptical, ambitious, Protestant.' A rebellious young student who courted suspensions, Ms. Howe found her way to Stanford University, which she attended for three years without taking a degree. Ms. Howe's stellar writing led to teaching stints at Tufts University, Emerson College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Columbia, Yale, and Georgetown universities; Kenyon College and UC San Diego, where she retired as a professor emerita. After Ms. Howe's time at Stanford, her brief marriage to Frederick Delafield ended in divorce. Encouraged by her father to return to Boston, she was editing a literary magazine with Though Ms. Howe was born into Brahmin privilege, 'there was no trust fund,' she once wrote. Her years as a single mother included multiple jobs and residences, some shared with other single mothers and their children. Danzy Senna described that time as 'very bohemian, hardscrabble.' Advertisement 'She was a completely free person,' Senna said. 'I think she was handing the inheritance of freedom to us.' During those years, 'my most vivid memory of her is at her typewriter, just banging away at her poetry and novels and trying to block out the noise,' Senna said. While some critics make much of the fragmented, experimental nature of some of Ms. Howe's writing, 'the form was in some ways created by necessity,' her daughter said. 'I think it got more experimental because she was trying to be a writer with three children and no money — that's the experiment.' In addition to her daughter and two sisters, Ms. Howe leaves another daughter, A celebration of Ms. Howe's life and work will be announced. She converted to Catholicism as an adult and explored her relationship to faith in her writing. 'I was raised Protestant, or atheist, and I'd always felt sort of bereft in the world — like, 'Why be here?' Catholicism was a wonderful thing to come across when I was in such desperate straits,' she told The Paris Review. Ms. Howe's 'very savage generosity was really coming from a very spiritual loving place that was very political in a profound way,' the poet Eileen Myles said. Among the works in Ms. Howe's 'Selected Poems' is one titled 'In the Spirit There Are No Accidents,' which begins: 'God is already ahead and waiting: the future is full.' Advertisement She ends by writing: 'The land is an incarnation/like a hand on a hand on an arm asking do you know me ?' Bryan Marquard can be reached at
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Poetry Foundation Announces the First Sustainable Futures Grants Cohort
Commits more than $3 million in grants to 12 organizations across the United States CHICAGO, June 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Poetry Foundation is proud to announce the launch of the Sustainable Futures Grants program, its new national philanthropic initiative providing $3 million in multi-year general operating support grants to 12 poetry organizations. The Sustainable Futures Grants are a key part of the Poetry Foundation's renewed grantmaking strategy to strengthen the poetry ecosystem in the United States. Each of the 12 organizations in the first Sustainable Futures Grants cohort will receive a three-year general operating support grant, providing them with flexibility and stability to advance their missions and expand their impact. In addition to funding, cohort members will be invited to participate in a series of convenings and professional development opportunities designed to foster connection, share knowledge, and bolster the collective field. "At a time when access to arts funding is diminishing, the Poetry Foundation had the opportunity to provide poetry organizations with sustained, unrestricted support," said Poetry Foundation president and CEO, Michelle T. Boone. "The new multi-year funding model allows these grantee-partners the freedom to plan for the future as they fill gaps in the communities they serve, creating more stability in the literary arts." The Inaugural Sustainable Futures Grants CohortThe organizations in the cohort, all past Poetry Foundation grantee-partners, are dedicated to supporting and amplifying underrepresented voices in poetry through fellowships and residencies, publishing, community-centered workshops, youth education programs, and the presentation of poetry events across the United States. The inaugural members of the Sustainable Futures Grants cohort are (grant amounts are evenly distributed over a three-year grant period): American Poetry Museum, Washington, D.C. - $150,000 Cave Canem, New York - $450,000 Chicago Poetry Center, Illinois - $300,000 Guild Literary Complex, Illinois - $225,000 Indigenous Nations Poets, Wisconsin - $225,000 InsideOut Literary Arts, Michigan - $300,000 Noemi Press, Arizona - $150,000 O, Miami, Florida - $300,000 Poets House, New York - $300,000 Split This Rock, Washington, D.C. - $225,000 The Watering Hole, South Carolina - $150,000 Young Chicago Authors, Illinois - $300,000 Grants Strategy and Selection ProcessThe Sustainable Futures grantmaking strategy was developed based on research into innovations in philanthropy and feedback from the Poetry Foundation's Grantee-Partner Perception Survey, in which respondents requested multi-year funding, capacity-building support, and opportunities to convene with peer organizations. The Poetry Foundation board then approved the funding strategy to support the inaugural cohort. "Now more than ever, it's critical to invest in poetry organizations that are nurturing diverse voices, building community, and expanding access to the literary arts," said Chris Guzaitis, director of grants and awards. "The members of this cohort are leaders who are shaping the future of poetry with creativity, care, and resilience—it is an honor to support the work they do." Through the Sustainable Futures Grants program, the Poetry Foundation reaffirms its commitment to amplifying diverse poetic voices and building a more equitable and sustainable future for poetry. Past grantee-partners were invited to apply to the program and then were selected by an internal committee of Poetry Foundation staff. All cohort members are poetry-centered organizations representing several regions in the United States, including several organizations in Chicago, the Poetry Foundation's hometown. The Poetry Foundation is accepting applications for general operating support grants from nonprofit poetry-based organizations, presses, publications, and literary arts service and membership organizations. The deadline to apply is July 15, 2025. Learn more about applying. About the Poetry FoundationThe Poetry Foundation recognizes the power of words to transform lives. The Foundation works to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry. Follow the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Poetry Foundation Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Alice Notley, Poet Celebrated for ‘Restless Reinvention,' Dies at 79
Alice Notley, a prizewinning poet who exalted in disobeying literary traditions in creating dreamlike worlds that drew from myth, motherhood and the voices of the dead, died on May 19 in Paris, where she had lived since the 1990s. She was 79. Her sons, the poets Edmund and Anselm Berrigan, said she died in a hospital from a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been in treatment for ovarian cancer. Hailed as 'one of America's greatest poets' by the Poetry Foundation, Ms. Notley published more than 40 books over five decades. Her autobiographical collection 'Mysteries of Small Houses' was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1999 and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry in 1998. She received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation for lifetime achievement in 2015. Ms. Notley took traditional forms of poetry like villanelles and sonnets and laced them with experimental language that fluctuated between vernacular speech and dense lyricism. She also created pictorial poetry, or calligrams, in which she contorted words into fantastical shapes. In her 2020 collection, 'For the Ride,' one calligram took the form of a winged coyote. 'The signature of her work is a restless reinvention and a distrust of groupthink that remains true to her forebear's directive: to not give a damn,' David S. Wallace wrote in The New Yorker in 2020. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
