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Synopsis
The poems of Richard Howard are noted for their unique dramatic force and for preserving, in their graceful, exquisitely wrought lines, human utterance at its most urbane. Inner Voices, the first volume to draw together material from Howard's twelve books of poems, leaves no doubt as to why he has been called "a powerful presence in American poetry for 40 years" (The New York Times Book Review).
The New York Times - Brad Leithauser
By my count, 80 of the 100-odd poems in Richard Howard's ''Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003'' take art or artists as their subject. A preponderance of the 80 focus on writers and painters -- a dozen or so are ruminations on individual canvases -- but composers, sculptors and dancers also help build the throng. Such tabulations are imprecise, of course, given both the difficulties of tallying a multi-part poem and the skittery elusiveness of topic when any poem ranges far afield. What seems unarguable, however, is that in the landscape of American poetry no other poet, setting up a homestead for himself, has toiled so diligently to breed such a herd: creatures whose dam is art and whose sire is art.