Informed by the death of a beloved brother, here are the stories of childhood, its thicket of sex and sorrow and joy, boys and girls growing into men and women, stories of a brother who in his dying could teach how to be most alive. a poetry of intimacy, witness, honesty, and relation (Boston Globe).. . .
It is a genuinely feminine form .
Unlike the earlier confessional poetry of Plath, Lowell, Sexton et al., Howe\'s writing is not so much a moan or a shriek as a song.
What the Living Do reflects a new form of confessional poetry, one shared to some degree by other women poets such as Sharon Olds and Jane Kenyon.
Informed by the death of a beloved brother, here are the stories of childhood, its thicket of sex and sorrow and joy, boys and girls growing into men and women, stories of a brother who in his dying could teach how to be most alive