Fanny Howe

Went to the Fanny Howe reading last night. But I got really lost on the Berkeley campus and got to the reading 40 minutes late. I walk in and hear, "This will be the last poem," and I'm like shit! But it is not Fanny, it is some opening act poet, the name of the poem was "Lost," I swear. Funny.

So then Fanny reads. Perfect timing, being lost. I really liked a book of hers I read a while ago that had a lot of spirituality stuff going on, I can't remember what it was, Gone? I think. I think I read she was raised an atheist but became a catholic late in life? So she is coming at religion from a different POV than those other religious people. She read a lot of anti-war poems, and a series written in Ireland or about Ireland, that were happier, as she said. One line I really liked, can't remember verbatim, but something to the effect of seeing a sentence or a line of poetry as being one long word...

Also memorable:

"When the president wakes up, it always asksWhat am I doing here? Where's that man?"
I like how she neuters him as an it.

I checked out On the Ground. I couldn't possibly have remembered that all verbatim!
She seems to mix the anti-war bits and the spiritual bits a lot. I guess they do commonly go together.

"An angel is a messenger who runs very fastso you don't see angels anymore
Time has altered its arcAnd angels keep changing form and never pause
Their wings might be as sharp as missilesThat can mimic
The vicious acts of human beings."

And I seem to be noticing an Air theme that I am drawn to:

"Hello air
Infinity is colonizing my mind."

I love it, like the most spiritual moments are the moments that are spread out, expanded, which seems like what air is symbolizing. When you are not over occupying your space...

and I really like this passage too:

"In my experience
the angel with his wings upis trying to kill the dragon of history
to prove that airis stronger than the objects in it
and if he wasn't made of stone, he would."