Anthology Poet Highlight 3/82: Susan Elizabeth Howe, “My True Country”
Susan is one of Mormon culture’s more prominent poets. She’s published in some of the nation’s prestigious journals and has served as the poetry editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and Literature and Belief. Her Poetry Foundation bio note speaks to her influences and something of her philosophy:
“Influenced by Elizabeth Bishop, Howe’s poems tend to find their source in observation rather than personal experience, and often explore women’s lives and the natural world through the lens of her Mormon faith. In a 2009 interview with Mormon Artist, Howe noted, ‘Imagination, as I have experienced it, can be part of and lead to spiritual growth, and imagination is the natural province of the poet.’”
As I read it, Susan’s work seems to combine the emotion of sentimental poetry (which many Mormons seem especially drawn to) with the complexity of, well, Elizabeth Bishop. But Susan doesn’t get sentimental (i.e., she doesn’t yield to unearned emotion) and she maintains hope in human relationships. It’s a hard line to walk, but she does it successfully and repeatedly.