A review by jackiijackii
What the Living Do: Poems by Marie Howe

4.0

What sticks with me is the atmosphere of sadness. Even when the sun shines in a poem, the collection itself is under a gray haze. And it isn't overly grief-stricken, nobody throws herself on a funeral pyre: it's the sadness of the everyday, when loss is there and when it isn't. There was no jauntiness, no knowing nudges or winks. Just a plain, simple story in plain language that lodges in your heart until you can tell someone that you love them.