house tornado

The last time I heard Fanny Howe read was with Tom Raworth a year or so ago. The upstairs room at The Lamb was a complete crush as was the stairwell. The atmosphere was stifling so the readers sensibly kept the brackets short. I’d been sitting near the front of the room and felt that if I left I’d never get back in again. Last night Fanny read again together with Hank Lazer at greater length and to a manageable summer holidays gathering. It was good to hear both of these poets (it was Hank Lazer’s first reading in the UK). Howe read mostly from the recent Come and See and included a poem written by her daughter in the second bracket. Lazer read work from three books together with as yet unpublished poems which were both performable and visual.