Craft: Barbara Howes

Barbara Howes (1914-1996) was praised by the New Criterion for her “formal adeptness and lyric skill and her ability to sketch domestic scenes,” but especially for her “extreme-but-just” metaphors. Howes was married to the poet William Jay Smith, and (as usual) her poems have been unjustly overshadowed and overlooked.

How now Barbara Howes?

Barbara Howes, showing her lack of interest in promoting her own career

Louise Bogan called her “the most accomplished woman poet of the youngest writing generation—one who has found her own voice, chosen her own material, and worked out her own form.” Her books include The Undersea Farmer (1948), In the Cold Country (1954), Light and Dark (1959), Looking Up at Leaves (1966) and The Blue Garden (1972); also A Private Signal: New and Selected Poems, and finally Collected Poems: 1945-1990, which was a finalist for the 1978 National Book Award.