That this"What treasures of knowledge we cluster around." That This is a collection in three pieces. "Disappearance Approach," an essay about Howe's husband's sudden death--"land of darkness or darkness itself you shadow mouth"--begins the book with paintings by Poussin, an autopsy, Sarah Edwards and her sister-in-law Hannah, phantoms, and elusive remnants. "Frolic Architecture," the second section--inspired by visits to the vast 18th-century Jonathan Edwards archives at the Beinecke and accompanied by six photograms by James Welling--presents hauntingly lovely, oblique type-collages of Hannah Edwards Wetmore's diary entries that Howe (with scissors, "invisible" Scotch Tape, and a Canon copier) has twisted, flattened, and snipped into inscapes of force. The final section, "That This," delivers beautiful short squares of verse that might look at home in a hymnal, with their orderly appearance packing startling power: That this book is a history of a shadow that is a shadow of Me mystically one in another another another to subserve. |
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Autopsy Beinecke Blooming blue plastic Book and Manuscript Braddock Buffalo called his name child Copy Light covering the pages CPAP mask dark daughter dead death delirious direct me home downstairs early ernist Esther Edwards Burr Esther Stoddard Edwards Eurydice exceeding brittle eyes fan-cooled father felt flowers Folder FROLIC ARCHITECTURE Getty grace Hannah Edwards happiness Hare hody imagination inside jacket January 3rd Jonathan Edwards journal judge's face Landscape leaves letters light eith listen live lost lying marriage Mary Match Girl memory Midas mind mirror morning of January mother mulberry objects Orpheus paint paper paperwhites Peirce pencil commonplace Peter philosophy photographed poem Poussin Pyramus quiet Rare Book remember rivers Sarah Sarah's wedding dress secret sense sermon shadow sleep apnea Snake snow soul Susan things thought voice walking Wetmore wife's winter word worldly wrote