TY - JOUR
T1 - Palimtextual Tracts: Susan Howe’s Rearticulation of Place
AU - Bloomfield, Mandy
PY - 2014/12/1
Y1 - 2014/12/1
N2 - This article examines American poet Susan Howe’s engagement with landscape and place
across the trajectory of her career, centrally examining three key poems: Secret History of the
Dividing Line (1978), Thorow (1987) and Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007). In so doing, it
demonstrates this work’s pertinence for discussions of environmental aesthetics. Starting
from the premise that Howe’s poetic engagement with entangled historical and environmental
questions is as much formal as it is thematic, I focus on two of her prominent techniques: the
“palimtextual” excavation of source materials and the spatial use of the page. I argue that this
poetry’s entangled materialities play out shifting tensions and dialogues between a Romantic
quest for a reconnection with “nature” and a constructionist awareness of the forms of
mediation that shape the poetics of place.
AB - This article examines American poet Susan Howe’s engagement with landscape and place
across the trajectory of her career, centrally examining three key poems: Secret History of the
Dividing Line (1978), Thorow (1987) and Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007). In so doing, it
demonstrates this work’s pertinence for discussions of environmental aesthetics. Starting
from the premise that Howe’s poetic engagement with entangled historical and environmental
questions is as much formal as it is thematic, I focus on two of her prominent techniques: the
“palimtextual” excavation of source materials and the spatial use of the page. I argue that this
poetry’s entangled materialities play out shifting tensions and dialogues between a Romantic
quest for a reconnection with “nature” and a constructionist awareness of the forms of
mediation that shape the poetics of place.
UR - https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/context/sc-research/article/1117/viewcontent/Palimtextual_20tracts_20CL_20final_20version_20Nov_202014.pdf
U2 - 10.1353/cli.2014.0039
DO - 10.1353/cli.2014.0039
M3 - Article
SN - 0010-7484
VL - 55
SP - 665
EP - 700
JO - Contemporary Literature
JF - Contemporary Literature
IS - 4
ER -