TRANSFORMATIONS
February 2013-March 2014
17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab
__________________
Poems Inspired by Book 13
.Featuring:
Rebecca Audra Smith and Kate Garrett
_
.
Anuis’ four daughters turned to doves
by Rebecca Audra Smith
.
The daughters bring plenty, their hands are full.
They say they learnt of their mother
how to seek growth in acrid ground.
In the kitchen, they make like goddesses,
scatter salt as if the sea’s waters had dried
and crystallised of their tears.
When war came and plundered the country
the girls flew from their houses.
They did not wait to be rescued.
The sky was filled with doves.
In their beaks, olive branches,
the ripening grey-green of their fruit.
.
Tribute
by Kate Garrett
(after Ovid’s ‘Memnon’; for MLG)
every grey sunrise
choked with mist
remembers the loss
of a son, & a mother
who once lit up
the scarlet morning.
her crystal teardrops
sweeten the leaves;
she could soften
even Jove’s heart
with her devotion.
.
Hecuba
will trade your eyes for lies,
for murder & for greed –
& she will take the snap-
howling jaws & paws of a bitch
not, after all, in disgrace,
but honour:
all the better to drain blood
from Thracian faces;
all the better to prowl nights,
over rocks, under hard stars.
.
.
You can find more about Becca and Kate here:
Rebecca Audra Smith
http://beccaaudra.wordpress.com/
Leave a Reply