Happy 90th Birthday, Richard Howard [by David Lehman]

Happy Birthday, Richard Howard

If you’re 84 today that means you were 47 when we met
You came to read poems and give two lectures
One on “The Art of Digression” the other on “The Art
Of  Hesitation” I think but could be wrong and when
A man in the audience quoted Eliot on James (“too fine a mind
For any idea to violate it”) you observed that this was not
A problem from which Eliot suffered. Baudelaire, Gide,
Camus, Barthes, Stendahl, and how many others plus de Gaulle
Were translated by a boy who learned French from an aunt
When he was five years old in a car from Cleveland to Florida.
And today is your birthday and I made you laugh on the phone.
Once when I rented your flat I was talking to Louise Gluck when,
Thanks to “call waiting,” then a novelty, Galway Kinnell called
For you, and from that moment on, dear sir, I felt justified
Answering the phone, “poetry headquarters.”

10 / 13 / 13

Comments

[David M. Katz]

Happy birthday, dear Richard! Let's all be reading you.

David M. Katz

[Susan Mitchell]

Happy Birthday, Richard, it's been many years, and still, I often think of you--and your house of books. ❤️

[Mary Maxwell]

David: Such a funny memory (from some years ago) of having lunch with you and Richard at a coffee shop just around the corner from his GV place... a lot of humorous discussion as to whether eating the pickle off someone else's plate was truly "transgressive." Richard raised one eyebrow: "There's transgression -- and then there's TRANSGRESSION!"

[Frank Bidart]

Dear Richard, you are one of the souls I am forever grateful to—your generosity and encouragement changed my life. Beyond the individual brilliance of your poems, you invented a mode of indelible dramatic monologue. There are crucial authors that I have seen only through your eyes (e.g., Cioran). With awe and love from Frank.

[The Best American Poetry]

Thank you, Frank. My hope is that David Alexander will read your comment (and others') aloud to Richard. -- DL

[David Schloss]

Truly Poetry Headquarters for more than a few generations of poets who still read him. Thanks for being so alive, dear Richard.

[Grace Schulman]

Grace Schulman wrote . . .
For Richard, on His Birthday

Beloved artist, man of the letter,
Each birthday finds you better and better;

Poet admired for your candor,
As in "abstinence makes the heart meander;"

We praise you, without reservations,
And in form, Like Most Revelations,

For Trappings, Fellow Feelings, Damages --
Fear not, we won't go on with this.

Instead, we'll just raise high a toast
To Richard, whom we love the most.

Grace Schulman
10/13/2019