SOURCE: Johnston, Devin. Review of Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979. Chicago Review 42, no. 2 (1996): 103-07.

In the following review, Johnston asserts that the poems collected in Frame Structures exhibit “full-blown poetic imagination, suggesting a remarkable coherence to Howe's oeuvre.”

This volume [Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979] gathers together four out of five of Susan Howe's first books, including Hinge Picture, Chanting at the Crystal Sea, Cabbage Gardens, and Secret History of the Dividing Line. Although these four received critical acclaim upon publication, they were all issued by small presses, and have not been readily available for some time. Given that Frame Structures presents Howe's first publications, one might expect to find the poet stumbling towards her present originality. Or those readers familiar with Howe's previous career as a visual artist might anticipate a turning point in “her movement from the visual arts into the iconography of the written word...