{"id":86553,"date":"2015-06-10T16:03:09","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=86553"},"modified":"2015-10-22T16:34:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T20:34:35","slug":"defenestration-of-prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/defenestration-of-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"Defenestration of Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_86557\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/susanhowe20111.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86557\" class=\"wp-image-86557\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/susanhowe20111.png\" alt=\"susanhowe20111\" width=\"600\" height=\"439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/susanhowe20111.png 1222w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/susanhowe20111-300x219.png 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/susanhowe20111-1024x749.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-86557\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan Howe at a lecture in 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>An excerpt from Susan Howe\u2019s \u201cDefenestration of Prague,\u201d originally published in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/86\" target=\"_blank\">Winter 1982 issue<\/a>. Howe, who was born in Boston, is eighty-eight today. \u201c<\/em><em>People often tell me my work is \u2018difficult,\u2019\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/6189\/the-art-of-poetry-no-97-susan-howe\">she told the <\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/6189\/the-art-of-poetry-no-97-susan-howe\">Review<\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/6189\/the-art-of-poetry-no-97-susan-howe\"> in 2012<\/a>. \u201cI have the sinking feeling they mean \u2018difficult\u2019 as in \u2018hopeless.\u2019 \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Skeletal kin<\/p>\n<p>tilt<br \/><em>italic lunacy<\/em><\/p>\n<p>long illness of little difference <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Seventy memories<br \/>masks<\/p>\n<p>singing and piping<br \/>to be<\/p>\n<p>(half words)<br \/>beginning and begetting<\/p>\n<p>strangers nodding to one another<\/p>\n<p>stumbling and scrambling<\/p>\n<p>(uncertain theme)<br \/>random form<\/p>\n<p>strong arm of my name<\/p>\n<p><em>Emblem<br \/><\/em>sign strewn flapping<\/p>\n<p>(flapping of ravens in rain)<br \/>What sequence<\/p>\n<p>Mothers hide harmless<\/p>\n<p>weary for antiquity<br \/>the simple<\/p>\n<p><em>Eglatine<br \/><\/em>Soldiers moving as toys in a<\/p>\n<p>world soul<br \/>War<\/p>\n<p>Obdurate as ocean he went forth<br \/>conquering<\/p>\n<p>\u2014and to conquer<br \/>Anathema<\/p>\n<p>who was my father<\/p>\n<p>Empty dominions beyond structure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An excerpt from Susan Howe\u2019s \u201cDefenestration of Prague,\u201d originally published in our Winter 1982 issue. Howe, who was born in Boston, is eighty-eight today. \u201cPeople often tell me my work is \u2018difficult,\u2019\u201d\u00a0she told the Review in 2012. \u201cI have the sinking feeling they mean \u2018difficult\u2019 as in \u2018hopeless.\u2019 \u201d Skeletal kin tiltitalic lunacy long illness [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[18412,18413,3539,165,9393],"class_list":["post-86553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-defenestration-of-prague","tag-issue-86","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-susan-howe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cDefenestration of Prague,\u201d a Poem by Susan Howe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An excerpt from our Winter 1982 issue.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/defenestration-of-prague\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defenestration of Prague by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 10, 2015 \u2013 An excerpt from Susan Howe\u2019s \u201cDefenestration of Prague,\u201d originally published in our Winter 1982 issue. 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