For students with a vested interest in creative writing, be it professional or for their own enjoyment, Washington University offers an additional source of information and inspiration for the next week.
Author and poet Fanny Howe is serving as the Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature within the English Department, a position held by four visiting professors in turn throughout the year. On campus for a total of two weeks, Howe gave a reading of selections from her work on September 20, and will present a colloquium at 8 pm September 27 in the Hurst Lounge, located in room 201 in Duncker Hall. According to Howe, the colloquium will include ideas and thoughts about the poetic process, as well as the meaning behind writing a poem.
Originally a professor of writing and American literature at the University of California at San Diego, Howe said that she was on the cusp of retiring when she received an invitation from WU English professor Carl Phillips to act as a visiting instructor. The invitation, she said, helped her decide to leave her position at UCSD.
The Hurst position, said Howe, has been characterized by “time and pleasure. Most [similar positions] really enslave you from the moment you arrive. Here, it’s almost like a grant to do a writer’s retreat.”
Howe pointed to her “writerly” background as one impetus for her career.
“I grew up in an environment of books,” said Howe. “My mother was a playwright and an actress; my grandfather was a writer. My mother quoted poetry all the time.”
However, it was Howe’s history as a “terrible” student that prompted her to write professionally. Caught up in the civil rights movement, she dropped out of college after completing two years at Stanford University. In order to support herself, she began writing pulp novels under a pseudonym. Despite the formulaic approach required for writing the novels, Howe cited the experience as being invaluable for learning the essentials of structure and plot.
“That was my apprenticeship to literature,” said Howe.
Howe later secured a position as a writing instructor at Tufts University, where she taught before moving to UCSD. She now travels around the country, engaging in a variety of visiting teaching positions similar to her engagement at WU.
In working with students, Howe said, she makes an effort to “enter into each individual’s imagination. I try not to impose the idea of a perfect poem onto a student, but work with what’s coming out of them already. I recommend books that they remind me of-it provides them with legitimacy.”
Howe cited Bernadette Mayer and Frank O’Hara as two poets whom she often recommends: “You read them and want to rush into the next room and write a poem yourself.”
Howe mentioned to a variety of sources as inspiration for her own work. Cinema, particularly the work of Fellini and other Italian neo-realists, influenced the style of her writing. Incidents and perspectives from Howe’s own life and from the lives of her friends provided material for the content of her books. Howe described “a certain sort of woman” as being characteristic to her work.
“She’s someone who can’t quite adjust to social mechanisms; someone who’s marginalized, a little crazy,” said Howe. “She’s often a single parent, and is.forced to make some sort of heroic choice in the world.”
Howe said her continuing involvement in politics and the civil rights movement shaped her work, directing her to utilize the realms of both fiction and poetry.
“I always felt I needed to describe my experiences in two different ways, one being more political,” said Howe. “Fiction is more caught up in history and how people are the victims of history, while poetry is a means of trying to escape. Everyone is trapped in the time that they live in, and there’s something about the impulse to write poetry that is a kind of effort at freedom and liberation. Fiction is a way of examining restraints.”