Magdalene: Poems

by Marie Howe

Overview

“Gorgeous, ferocious, lacerating, sexy, and profoundly compassionate.”—Michael Cunningham

Magdalene imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman who embodies the spiritual and sensual, alive in a contemporary landscape—hailing a cab, raising a child, listening to news on the radio. Between facing the traumas of her past and navigating daily life, the narrator of Magdalene yearns for the guidance of her spiritual teacher, a Christ figure, whose death she continues to grieve. Erotic, spirited, and searching for meaning, she is a woman striving to be the subject of her own life, fully human and alive to the sacred in the mortal world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393356038
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/28/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Marie Howe is the former poet laureate of New York. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets, she teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Before the Beginning 15

Magdalene-The Seven Devils 16

On Men, Their Bodies 22

How the Story Started 24

Thorns 25

The Affliction 26

The Split 30

What I Did Wrong 31

Magdalene on Romance 34

Magdalene: The Addict 36

Magdalene and the Interior Life 37

The Landing 39

Magdalene: The Woman Taken in Adultery 40

Magdalene: The Next Day 41

The Teacher 42

The Disciples 44

Magdalene on Gethsemane 46

Calvary 47

Magdalene Afterwards 48

Low Tide, Late August 52

The Adoption: When the Girl Arrived 55

The Girl at 3 56

Magdalene on Surrender 58

The Anima Alone 61

The News 62

Christmas Eve 64

Listening 66

Waiting at the River 68

The Teacher 69

Conversation: Dualism 71

Walking Home 72

Magdalene: Her Dream of Integration 74

Fourteen 75

After the Funeral 76

Adaptation 78

The Map 82

The Visit 83

Two Animals 85

October 86

Delivery 87

Magdalene at the Grave 90

What the Silence Says 92

Magdalene at the Theopoetics Conference 93

One Day 94

Editorial Reviews

"A smart, engrossing collection.… Readers of any religious background will find much that seems familiar in the modern-day everywoman who sees herself in the faces of a woman wearing a burka, a woman who longs for children and one who hails a taxi wearing a black suit and high heels."— Washington Post

"Marie Howe is magic. And in this book, her biggest magic trick is making the iconic biblical character, Mary Magdalene, both mystical and relatable, at once mythological and completely contemporary."— Rumpus

"In these powerful and accessible poems, Howe advocates nothing so narrow as a particular religious faith; instead, she seems to argue, loving the world, in spite and because of suffering, is life’s great risk, and its reward."— NPR

"A poignant portrait of contemporary womanhood.… This newest collection aptly demonstrates the particular strengths of Howe’s wry, bittersweet talent."— Library Journal, starred review

"Each book of Marie Howe’s is a singular accomplishment, but none is as wildly alive as this.… Howe sweeps up a life and fixes it on the page, and stands here before us, the stunned and grateful witness of all that’s taken and granted by love and time."— Mark Doty

"Marie Howe is among our most gifted poets of trauma and healing, and of where the everyday encounters the world of the sacred. In Magdalene, Howe raises the ante. She now channels the ‘woman taken in adultery’ of New Testament legend, and she is also her questing self, lover and mother, risen to the exaltation of the possible."— Alicia Ostriker, author of The Book of Seventy

"Marie Howe has always come as close as any poet since Rilke to touching eternity, simply by stretching out her hand and believing that something exists beyond her grasp, beyond her knowing. Here, with Magdalene, she somehow goes even deeper, into what it is to both be alive and a manifestation of the divine. I am, once again, in awe of her powers, at their fullest here."— Nick Flynn

From the Publisher