Description
Book SynopsisBeautiful essays by Fanny Howe, a poet praised for her private quest through the metaphysical universe . . . the results are startling and honest (The New York Times Book Review)
Fanny Howe''s richly contemplative The Winter Sun is a collection of essays on childhood, language, and meaning by one of America''s most original contemporary poets.
Through a collage of reflections on people, places, and times that have been part of her life, Howe shows the origins and requirements of a vocation that has no name. She finds proof of this in the lives of othersJacques Lusseyran, who, though blind, wrote about his inner vision, surviving inside a concentration camp during World War II; the Scottish nun Sara Grant and Abbé Dubois, both of whom lived extensively in India where their vocation led them; the English novelists Antonia White and Emily Brontë; and the fifth-century philosopher and poet Bharthari. With interludes referring to her own place and situation, Howe makes this book into a Progress rather than a memoir.
The Winter Sun displays the same power as found in her highly praised collection of essays, The Wedding Dress, a book described by James Carroll as an unflinching but exhilarating look at real religion, the American desolation, a woman''s life, and, always, the redemption of literature.
