Review Notation: Cutting Edge...

ONE CROSSED OUT
by Fanny Howe

Published by Graywolf Press

	Our favorite amongst the mighty selections from Graywolf Press is, of course, Fanny Howe's poem cycle One Crossed Out (which is why we beleaguered Howe to write the introduction to this issue of STANDARDS). Our readers who know this poet's work will be not just pleasantly surprised by this new volume, but awestruck. Yes, really. We're not even going to compare this book to Howe's previous works, all of which stand alone. This one included. We have passed this book around to our editors, staff members, students, and advisory board of educators, and we've each read it again and again. In the end, we tracked down Howe through Graywolf and gained permission to reprint selections from this book. First, a sense of the book itself. As Howe's contemporary in poetry Quincy Troupe proclaims: "Fanny Howe is a sly, wicked poet, always shifting between the social, the political, as well as the linguistic and literary concerns of an artist always writing from the cutting edge. One Crossed Out is a thrilling book of poetry by poet in total control of her craft and voice." Amen to that. Like her earlier works, Howe's new collection dazzles the mind and delights the tongue (if you don't read aloud, try it now—with this book). At the Baobab Community High School, a college preparatory school for at-risk students, in Boulder, Colorado, we began encouraging students to begin the day by reading aloud from One Crossed Out. The students were amazed at the flow and exactitude of the language in these poems, and stunned by the ease with which they could connect to the vibrant themes of anger, despair, poverty, homelessness, and, above all, pride. Our university students and professional colleagues around the nation have found the book equally engaging. This is what's meant by "contemporary poetry," within and beyond the United States. Most importantly, this is poetry that truly matters.