What do the living do? They make breakfast, park cars, bury the dead, shovel snow, kmake love, return videos; they suffer and survive and remember and speak. Daring, clearm heartbreaking, provocative, compassionate, these poems tell unforgettable stories of all our lives.
Gregory Cowles is a senior editor at the Book Review.
At dinner my mom told us her book club had read a poem about a dead brother, but she couldn’t remember which one, so I concluded the evening by reciting Marie Howe’s great “What the Living Do.” (Wrong poem, but well received.)
Polish up those poems and send them our way--we're excited to see your work! $1500 prize, all poems considered for publication, and Marie Howe as final judge. https://t.co/raksBCIdPY https://t.co/hNu4UUMusd
I am a readers' advisory librarian. Clarion West Writers Workshop board member. 2022 World Fantasy Award judge. Personal account. she/her 🏳️🌈
Both the book I am reading now and the Ross Gay book I just read have invoked Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do.” When I read it I transcribed the poem “My Dead Friends” for my Goodreads review so I could find it whenever I needed it: https://t.co/S5MqQFgq2k