07/12/2025
We note with sorrow the passing of our friend F***y Howe, a fine but always edgy writer of poetry, fiction and memoir. Her mother Molly (Mary Manning Howe) was one of the founders of the Poets' Theatre back in 1950. As a child, F***y occasionally acted in PT productions, such as her mother's piece, "Here Comes Everybody," based on FINNEGANS WAKE. The "Riverview" apartment building (between F***y's apartment and the Charles) is where Molly held court in her apartment as President of the Poets' Theatre during the 1990s. As our meetings drivelled on caught up in trivia Molly would shout "But when are we going to put on a PLAY?" That building didn't just have a view of the river, it was built on mooshy old tide-flats (the Charles was a salt water estuary for most of its English-language history). Today's Globe, that announces F***y's death, also reports that "Riverview" will be torn down. To paraphrase the old Calypso song. "House built on a weak foundation will not last, oh no (Oh no, Oh no!)"
But as Yeats would say "All things fall and are built again/ and those that build them again are gay/ gaiety transfiguring all that dread."
