“Since early adolescence I have wanted to live the life of a poet. What this meant to me was a life outside the law; it would include disobedience and uprootedness. I would be at liberty to observe, drift, read, travel, take notes, converse with friends, and struggle with form.” p.5
“The child poised on the threshold of a door is also the ghost going the other way; they are one action immortalised by a single position toward the world: not there.” p.23
“The struggle to foster a culture informed by art and literature was soon to be stifled by the military, scientific, and monetary complex. Some people knew this and found the loss unbearable; most didn’t notice.” p.31
Fanny Howe, The Winter Sun
“The unformed mind at play is the most interior, half-submerged, and elusive figure we have, expunged and redrawn.” p.15
“I have to say I never got over my shock that there is a world and it is living.” p.117
Fanny Howe, The Needle’s Eye
Many and special thanks to flowerville for the discovery of Fanny Howe, who combines intellectual coherence with a use of language that can stab, soothe or tickle as the occasion requires.