Marie Howe: Tell Me The Whole Story

Marie Howe just won a Pulitzer for her New and Selected poems. People who analyze poetry better than I can tell you why she’s a great poet. I can only say that her work reaches into me, grabs me, and every time I read one of her poems I see something new and dive deeper.

I often use her poem, The Spell, in my Women’s Writing Circles. What is remarkable about this poem is that it starts off with the mundane, the back-and-forth between her and her child about how her day was, and then travels to the stories that live beneath the stories that live beneath more stories. This is why I use this poem in class-I ask people to take a potentially mundane event and keep traveling down the layers.

And the ending, as her daughter stares sideways out the window “where they say the unloved life lives. OK? I said. And she said OK, still looking in that direction.”

Take my breath away.

*****

The Spell by Marie Howe

Every day when I pick up my four-year-old daughter from preschool

she climbs into her back booster seat and says, Mom—–tell me your story.

And almost every day I tell her: I dropped you off, I taught my class

I ate a tuna fish sandwich, wrote e-mails, returned phone calls, talked with students

and then I came to pick you up.

And almost every day I think, My God, is that what I did?

Yesterday, she climbed into the backseat and said, Mom

tell me your story, and I did what I always did: I said I dropped you off

taught my class, had lunch, returned e-mails, talked with students…

And she said, No Mom, tell me the whole thing.

And I said, ok. I feel a little sad.

And she said, Tell me the whole thing Mom.

And I said, ok Elise died.

Elise is dead and the world feels weary and brokenhearted.

And she said, Tell me the whole thing Mom.

And I said, in my dream last night I felt my life building up around me and

when I stepped forward and away from it and turned around I saw a high

and frozen crested wave.

And she said, the whole thing Mom.

Then I thought of the other dream, I said, when a goose landed heavily on my head—

But when I’d untangled it from my hair I saw it wasn’t a goose but a winged serpent

writhing up into the sky like a disappearing bee.

And she said, Tell me the whole story.

And I said, Elise is dead, and all the frozen tears are mine of course

and if that wave broke it might wash my life clear,

and I might begin again from now and from here.

And I looked into the rearview mirror—

She was looking sideways, out the window, to the right

—where they say the unlived life is.

Ok? I said.

And she said, Ok, still looking in that direction.