New Books Network Sarah Howe, "Foretokens" (Random House, 2025)
Mar 27, 2026
Sarah Howe, British poet and editor known for exploring family, migration, and memory, discusses her new collection Foretokens. She talks about her mother’s hoarding and how family archives shape identity. Conversations trace cultural trauma, the ethics of writing others’ pain, the craft of assembling a poetic archive, and the intuition that knits fragments into a coherent book.
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Archive Versus Hoard And The Archivist Role
- Howe distinguishes archive from hoard by saying an archive has an external selector deciding in/out while a hoard accumulates chaotically.
- She frames her own role as family archivist, rescuing photographs her mother tried to shred after Sarah cleared attic boxes.
Clearing The Attic Triggered A Photographic Retaliation
- Sarah recounts clearing attic boxes containing her childhood toys and provoking her mother's fury, who then began cutting up black-and-white photos.
- She rescued the photographs and keeps the box as a precious but unintelligible trove without her mother's explanations.
Writing As Sorting And Emotional Labor
- Howe suggests hoarding is a psychic barricade against pain and disconnection, while her writing functions as the corollary act of sorting and preserving memory.
- She intentionally lets the book start as mess and only cohere late, mirroring the archival act of selecting signal from noise.
