Souls Of The Labadie Tract

From Susan Howe's Souls Of The Labadie Tract:

Errand

During his ministry in Northampton, Jonathan Edwards travaled alone on horseback from parish to parish. Boston was a three-day ride east. It was easier to get to Hartford and New Haven. At Greenfield, the Mohawk Trail began its climb westward toward eastern New York (then frontier territory). As an idea occured to him, he pinned a small piece of paper on his clothing, fixing in his mind an association between the location of the paper and the particular insight. On his return home, he unpinned each slip and wrote down its associated thought according to location. "Extricate all questions from the least confusion by words or ambiguity of words so that the Ideas shall be left naked" he once wrote. Poetry is love for the felt fact stated in sharpest, most agile and detailed lyric terms. Words give clothing to hide our nakedness. I love to imagine this gaunt and solitary traveler covered in scraps, riding through the woods and fields of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Susan Howe with David Grubbs (Gastr del Sol)

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Grape Lights

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