I AM SO smitten with the figure of Mary Magdalene that I decided to skip the Pulitzer Prize-winning New and Selected and read this collection from 2017 instead.
The whole book is in the voice of Mary Magdalene, I assume, but Magdalene as she might have been in our own time. "The Seven Devils," for instance, elaborates on the devils that Mark and Luke mention were driven out of Magdalene, but the devils have a contemporary flavor ("The first was that I was very busy," "The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling"). The Jesus figure is never named, is always just "he" or sometimes "you," is only around for a relatively short while, and the relationship includes the sexual. He crosses Magdalene's path, pops like an epiphanic flashbulb lighting up her world, and then is gone.
Magdalene's post-Jesus years--during which, according to medieval legends, she evangelized France and then became a hermit--are in this book mainly devoted to raising a daughter.
Since Howe herself raised a daughter, I wondered to what extent Magdalene was a persona Howe was using to write about her own life. Poems like "Magdalene at the Theopoetics Conference" especially prompted such speculation, Howe having spoken at a theopoetics conference in 2016. (Judging from the poem, she didn't have the greatest time.)
Speaking through the mask of a character from sacred history is an audacious move, but Howe made it work. I read the book in two sittings, so I was obviously hooked. Howe writes in a subtle blend of clarity, lyricism, and vision here, and I would be interested in reading another of her collections.
No comments:
Post a Comment