Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams

Description

In two intertwined songs, a feminist epic poem and a dreamlike opera libretto, Among the Goddesses traces one woman's harrowing mythological journey of discovery. Tutored by encounters with seven Goddesses, both frightening and nurturing, Marie/Lily is tested by loss, rape, and abortion as she finds her community and her spiritual stren

Annie Finch is the author of four books of poetry, Eve, Calendars (a finalist for the Forward Poetry Book of the Year Award) and The Encyclopedia of Scotland (Salt Publishing), as well as the definitive translation of the Complete Poems of Renaissance love poet Louise Labe. She has also published nine books about poetry, most recently The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self. She is a professor of English at the University of Southern Maine and director of the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program in creative writing. Poems and further information are available at her website, www.anniefinch.com.

"Among the Goddesses is a bold experiment. Magical, mystical, musical, it charts a woman's journey that reverses the journey of Odysseus. What is it to be aided by goddesses, if we are women? What is it to face death, and to cause death? How do we become ourselves? "Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innanna" may be the mileposts of any woman's journey toward freedom." --Alicia Ostriker, author of No Heaven and The Book of Seventy "Among the Goddesses is Annie Finch's push toward the creation of a monumental work-of-art, an opera as totalartwork & as a vibrant mix of theater & epic. In her personal version/vision of these now resuscitated goddesses she ventures beyond the limits of the lyric/confessional mode too long assigned to poetry. And what's even better: she sings it out loud as a litany of sounded/clashing dactyls & classical/classy repetitions & choruses, enough to carry any reader, she or he, who wants to go there. Where? Into that genuinely mythic place, the home of poetry & prophecy, where she affirms her artistry & dares us to hear & share her vision." --Jerome Rothenberg