The Lyrics

Who was that stranger beside me?

Please forgive me for insisting

It must have been a dream.

No one could survive such happiness.

--from " Untitled]"

The Lyrics by Fanny Howe records the days of one seeking knowledge through movement and contingent images--a monastery, a motel, an Irish coastal river--all the while conscious of political and class warfare, of being American, of the need to know the difference (if there is one) between good and evil. Each poem is a lament formed in a place of rest, asking: Can we get beyond this and still be? The Lyrics is the newest work of an intense and vital poet.