One crossed out

the long version

Fanny Howe's new collection presents a portrait painted from the inside of the life of a homeless woman. The poems speak in the voice of May, the girl crossed out, the bad girl, the mad and drunk girl, the jailed and drugged girl. May is swirling in language, and the language convinces us that we really are deep in the core of a human consciousness, near the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. May is a neonomad, bringing to the world the opposite of worldliness, offering a glimpse of the invisible.