New and Selected Poems

Characterized by “a radical simplicity and seriousness of purpose, along with a fearless interest in autobiography and its tragedies and redemptions” (Matthew Zapruder, New York Times Magazine), Marie Howe’s poetry transforms penetrating observations of everyday life into sacred, humane miracles. This essential volume draws from each of Howe’s four previous collections—including What the Living Do (1997), a haunting archive of personal loss, and the National Book Award–longlisted Magdalene (2017), a spiritual and sensual exploration of contemporary womanhood—and contains twenty new poems. Whether speaking in the voice of the goddess Persephone or thinking about aging while walking the dog, Howe is “a light-bearer, an extraordinary poet of our human sorrow and ordinary joy” (Dorianne Laux).

Winner of Pulitzer Prize 2025

"[New and Selected Poems] makes a concise case for Howe's status as an essential poet…Marie Howe is writing some of the most devastating and devastatingly true poems of her career—and some of the best being written by anyone…Howe is the rare poet whose poems one wants to hug closely for company, companionship, and empathy; and yet they are works of literature of the highest order, layered, full of booby traps and shoots and ladders that suddenly transport one between the words. It's tough love that these poems offer, but it's undeniably love." -- Craig Morgan Teicher - NPR
"A sampling 30 years of [Howe's] acutely observed verse…Howe's poems, both new and old, are a revelation as she expertly illuminates quiet, intimate moments." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Howe’s bountiful fifth collection (after Magdalene) offers a crown of new poems to open selections from her quietly astonishing body of work…the unmistakable objects of Howe’s attention remain steadfastly present (“thing and spirit both: the real/ world: evident, invisible”), suffused by a tender doom. This is a necessary compilation for times of crisis." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Marie Howe is the former poet laureate of New York. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets, she teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.

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