Susan Howe
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Susan Howe (born 1937) is an Irish-born American poet and critic who is closely associated with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group of poets. Her sister is the poet Fanny Howe and her niece is the author Danzy Senna.
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Early life
Howe was born Dublin, where in her mother, Mary Manning, wrote plays and acted for the Abbey Theatre. The family moved to the United States when Howe was a young child. She grew up in Boston and now lives in Guilford, Connecticut.
Publications
Howe is author of a number of books of poetry, including Europe of Trusts: Selected Poems (1990), Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979 (1996) and The Midnight (2003), and two books of criticism, The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History (1993) and My Emily Dickinson (1985). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the important L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E gathering In the American Tree.
Influences
Her main literary influences are Dickinson, Charles Olson and early Puritan writers like Cotton Mather. The link between these is New England, and Howe can be viewed as a New England poet in her sense of new possibilities and preference for an economy of means. Recent writings, including Pierce-Arrow (1999), reflect an ongoing dialogue and engagement with the writings of Charles Sanders Pierce.
Other Activities
Howe spent some time in Dublin, where she worked as an actor and assistant stage director with the Gate Theatre. She paints and has worked as a radio producer. Since 1989 she has taught English at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.