Poet Marie Howe Click on image to download print-quality version

GRANTHAM, Pa. (March 20, 2007) — The poetry of Marie Howe earned praise from author Margaret Atwood for being "intensely felt, sparely expressed and difficult to forget."  Howe will read her work on April 11 at 7:30 p.m. in Kline Hall of Science, room 120, on Messiah College's Grantham campus.  The reading is free and open to the public.

Howe is the author of two volumes of poetry – "The Good Thief," which won the 1998 National Poetry Series, and "What the Living Do," chosen by Publisher's Weekly as one of the five best volumes of poetry in 1997. "The Good Thief" explores themes of relationship, attachment and loss in a uniquely personal search for transcendence.  "What the Living Do" centers around the grief of losing a loved one; in Howe's case, a brother who died from AIDS.  In addition to her own volumes of poetry, Howe is the co-editor of a book of essays, "In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic."

Howe was selected for a Lavan Younger Poets Prize from the American Academy of Poets; Stanley Kunitz chose her, referring to her poetry as "luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life."  Howe is a recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.  Her poems have appeared in "The New Yorker," "The Atlantic," "Poetry," "Ploughshares" and the "Harvard Review," among others.

Howe currently teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University and New York University.