Poetry Plastique

Taking a more archaic approach are poet Susan Howe (My Emily Dickinson, etc.) and artist and critic Susan Bee (The M / E / A / N / I / N / G Book) ""Pensive itinerants and exhorters/ gathering manna in the morning"" in their forebodingly titled Bed Hangings. The book juxtaposes fragmentary texts culled from a variety of early American sources, with Bee's clipped caricatures, altered engravings and slyly reconfigured silhouettes iconically pointing the way back to ""ten thousandth truth/ ...as if tumbling were apt/ parable preached in/ hedge-sparrow gospel."" ( May 1)