Penitential Cries

This spare and arresting collection from Howe (Concordance) comprises four series poems that address aging, history, and the afterlives of texts and language. The eponymous opening section is a long, elegiac prose poem studded with references to religious texts, Roman history, and intriguing glimpses into the poet’s research process. It moves effortlessly from blunt representations of emotion (“I have wept away all my brain”) to esoteric mysticism (“Marguerite Porete says she cannot have what God wills she should/ will. For her, will is nothing compared to the fullness she will never/ be given, and this is the will of God”). In the second section, “Sterling Park in the Dark,” Howe pulls from scans of works by John Donne, Goethe, Henry James, and others to create typographically innovative mini-poems. The third section, “The Deserted Shelf,” is an associative meditation on memory and reading that thrums with loss: “You can’t return to the deserted shelf in your soul across/ miles of brown blanket bog and sand.” The final section, “Chipping Sparrow,” consists of one shorter poem that distills the volume’s themes into a quiet but transfixing sequence on mortality. Howe reaffirms her position as a poet of the archives, bringing a new and enduring life to historical texts. (Sept.)