Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s Her Read: A Graphic Poem Reviewed by Shannon K. Winston

Breaking with (and through) the Page: Narrating Womxn’s Untold Stories Through Erasure in Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s Her Read: A Graphic Poem 

Review by Shannon K. Winston

Texas Review Press, 2021 

248 pp. 

$29.95 (hardcover)

Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s Her Read: a graphic poem is a stunning and ambitious book that pushes the boundaries of poetry, art, and the page. Her Read sings the effaced history of female authorship and artistic life, more generally. The book is divided into three main sections: 1) poet Eleanor Wilner’s introduction (titled “Her Introduction”) and Steinorth’s preface (“Her Apologia”). 2) the text of Her Read 3) The end matter, which includes “Her Thanks,” “Her Notes & Transcriptions,” and “Her Canvases.” Her Read is an extended erasure poem, which is a form of found poetry in which the poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise alters an already existing text. In this case, the original text is Herbert Read’s The Meaning of Art (1931), which Steinorth first discovered at a library discard sale (“Her Apologia” 18). Reed was an English poet and literary critic who wrote his book as a survey of different aesthetics and artistic movements. While reading his book, Steinorth was struck by a glaring omission: a lack of womxn artists. This lacuna was only minimally corrected in the 1951 edition when Read added one womxn: Barbara Hepworth (14). Throughout “Her Apologia,” Steinorth uses the alternate spelling of “womxn”—which this review will also use—in order to decenter the “man/men” in the word. This word choice is part of Steinorth’s larger project to create an alternate story out of and in response to Read’s male-centered narrative. The central question that Her Read explores is: How can one excavate previously silenced voices in a way that makes them dance on the page? 

As Steinorth explains in “Her Notes and Transcriptions,” she created Her Read by engaging with and superimposing her art and poetry over Read’s entire book; although some pages were excised or sewn together (235). The page numbers in the body of Her Read are the page numbers of Read’s original text so that readers can see the original artifact shining through. Using a variety of materials such as florist tissue, dress cloth, and embroidery floss (9), Steinorth plays with Read’s words, effacing some while putting others into high relief. In so doing, she alters the meaning in the original text in order to celebrate womxn’s artistic lineages and stories. 

Her Read is remarkable because it uses one form of erasure (the genre of poetic erasure) to highlight another (the social, political, and artistic erasure of womxn artists).  In “Her Introduction,” Wilner unpacks the complexities of this double erasure when she writes: “[B]y erasure, Steinorth reveals a hidden presence in those buried centuries of female artistry, an erasure of an erasure […] So that what begins in erasure transforms, as the book goes on, into a rich, layered graphic poem whose meanings emerge through skill in design and delight in pattern and texture (12). Indeed, skill and design are integral to every part of this book starting with its title: for Her Read is derived from Herbert Read’s name (Here I have crossed out “bert” to recreate the effect of the erasure). Part of the joy in Steinorth’s book is the discovery of words within words: in this case, gender (“her”) is embedded within Read’s own name. Here, as elsewhere in Her Read, Steinorth deliberately crafts and reconstitutes language through word play to highlight different power and gender paradigms at work in narrative. Texts must be understood in their contexts and then deconstructed in order to create a new, more inclusive account of individual lived experience. For example, on the cover page, Steinorth transforms The Meaning of Art into The Meaning of Art or The Me In Art. Rather than a theory of art that is superimposed from above, Steinorth’s creative and artistic rendering puts the individual (“me”) front and center so that the personal, aesthetic, and political are inextricably intertwined.

Each page in Her Read resembles a canvas whereon Steinorth creates collage-like images, blots out words, and adds different textures. Some pages completely alter and efface Read’s text while other pages only lightly cover over the source text with what resembles a thin coat of white out. No two pages look alike, and each poem is a journey onto itself. As the book’s PREFACE states, this text is “a/road or/passage from/what is” (5). Visually, these words look like the passage it describes. In this case, the passage-like design of the page reflects the message being conveyed. In other instances, however, the relationship between form and content breaks down. One example of this is on a page which begins: “To// form is to//part is to long” (26). At the bottom of the page, there are a series of repeated “to’s,” which further dismantle a sense of coherence and unified meaning. In the center of the same page, there is a chalice that’s been partially painted over and below the image, there’s a fragmented caption that reads “I am a ware” (ibid). The spacing between “a” and “ware” creates a brilliant wordplay: the speaker is a ware (an art object to be traded) and aware (cognizant of). This dual meaning is just one example of how Steinorth stretches language to show the objectification of womxn (“as wares,” in this case) and the ways in which their awareness of this objectification can help break that pattern. 

Deftly, Steinorth makes worlds around and through Read’s texts and images. In Her Read, one can find ink drawings, ironworks, and vases which were part of the source text. At the same time, Steinorth draws triangles and arrows between words, draws lines diagonally across the page, and layers on thick white strokes that resemble paint. In so doing, Steinorth demonstrates both her artistic and poetic prowess. For example, on page 130, which recently appeared in Diode and can be accessed here, Steinorth superimposes a stick figure over the page and on the opposite page draws a big, bulky heart that pulses in a 3D-like manner. While one should never confuse the speaker and with the poet herself, one could imagine Steinorth herself echoing the sentiments of the speaker on page 59 who declares: “I would like to free // color //and so emancipate//my// shadow//from this//connoisseur’s enthusiasm for pain.” Here, the speaker seeks her own agency and voice—a desire that is one of the dominant motifs of Her Read. With that freedom comes a capacity to transform pain and grief into delight and play.  

While Her Read engages with play and humor, it also takes on trauma and loss at a personal and national level. In “Her Apologia,” Steinorth contextualizes her project as having sprung from the political context of the 2016 election—a time when she was “dumbstruck by the hate swamping the spillways of the American political stage” (18). During the same period, Steinorth herself was experiencing a different type of pain: a debilitating physical one that prevented her from sitting and working for extending periods of time (18). Steinorth thus interweaves a discussion of her physical pain and the trauma of election, along with her desire to create a space for previously effaced voices. The beauty of Her Read resides in its ability to hold this pain and conflicting emotions, contexts, and situations at once. It is joyful and painful, hilarious, and serious. Each page reveals that Steinorth’s poetry is art and her art is poetry. Every poem is a delight and a wound. This is a beautiful book that one must see, hold, and touch. Its physicality is part of its poetry and artistry.

Shannon K. Winston’s poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, The Night Heron Barks, RHINO, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and several times for the Best of the Net. Her poetry collection, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press. She currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Footnotes:

“Erasure Poetry,” The Academy of American Poets. 

The erasure of the “Pre” is in the original. I have done my best to recreate the effect of erasure here. However, for clarity’s sake, I have opted not to recreate some Steinorth’s spacing between words. 

From here on, I will be referring to the pages of Herbert Read’s original text, which Steinorth preserved.

21 September 2021