In the spirit of National Poetry Month, I’d like to share a poet named Marie Howe, author of the incredible collection Magdalene. Howe was born in 1950 in Rochester, New York. Her first poetry collection was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Margaret Atwood (yes, like Handmaiden’s Tale). She has a self-proclaimed “obsession with the metaphysical, spiritual dimensions of life as they present themselves in the world.” So, if you find yourself entranced by Stranger Things, Howe might just be the poet you were looking for.
Firstly, the premise of the Magdalene is pretty strange. Howe is imagining the biblical figure Mary Magdalene in a contemporary, urban setting, as she is trying to find herself in this crazy world (can you say relatable?) Even more, the book tells of the lessons that women are taught by a male-dominated society, and consider how women can voice their opinions. The most famous poem from the collection is called “The Seven Devils,” that humorously and cleverly expresses the “demons” of everyday life that women experience.
The Seven Devils
Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out”
Luke 8:2.
The first was that I was very busy.
The second—I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.
The third—I worried.
The fourth—envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid, The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The mosquito too—its face. And the ant—its bifurcated body.
Ok the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice, because I had decided to take that plane that day, that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early and, I shouldn’t have wanted that. The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street the house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.
The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living
The sixth—if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.
The seventh—I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that was alive, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word—cheesecloth— to breath through that would trap it—whatever was inside everyone else that entered me when I breathed in.
No. That was the first one.
The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened? How had our lives gotten like this?
The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it—distinct, separate from me in a bowl or on a plate.
Ok. The first was that. I could never get to the end of the list. The second was that the laundry was never finally done.
The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did. And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was love?
The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong to anyone.
The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know.
The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.
The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying, the sound she made—her mouth wrenched to the right and cupped open so as to take in as much air… the gurgling sound, so loud we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.
And that I couldn’t stop hearing it—years later—grocery shopping, crossing the street—
No, not the sound—it was her body’s hunger finally evident—what our mother had hidden all her life.
For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots, the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.
The underneath. That was the first devil. It was always with me And that I didn’t think you—if I told you—would understand any of this—