What Light: This Week’s Poem: Heidi Howell
"Scraps of Morning" by Heidi Howell is this week's winning poem, selected by Maria Damon
Poetics
Poetry is very much a sanctuary space for me, and within that small, protected, even isolated space, I continue to be especially interested in the way language both functions and does not function to express meaning(s), intended and accidental, and the resulting layers of paradox and indeterminacy that can and do surround any given poem. And, for that matter, any human relationship. Lately, I tend to spend more time with poets of the past than contemporary writers (especially Dickinson, Whitman, Stein, and H.D.), but I am enjoying Matthea Harvey’s work very much right now. I also love Susan Howe, Lyn Heijinian, and Michael Palmer.
Biography
Heidi Howell holds an MFA from George Mason University and has published her work in small magazines including Disturbed Guillotine, French Letters, Matrix, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, and the Washington Review, which nominated six of her poems for the Pushcart Prize.