My Poem

I came up with the idea (after class on Tuesday) that I would like to create my own poetic rendition of all of Ovid’s stories.  While this seems to be much more of a daunting task than I anticipated—writing poetry is really hard—I expect that these stories, or at least some of them, will be illuminated in my memory more so, than if I skimmed them, and wrote a short sentence on each.  So for this assignment, I think I am going to continually challenge myself to compose a poem on each book of the metamorphoses.  I think the reader will observe that, there is no Book 1, and book 2 is only partially completed.  As I said, writing poetry is really hard, and I think I will use the medium of the blog to continually update the composition of my rendition of Ovid’s stories:        

 PS: this poem will be privy to lots changes

Ovid,

Weaver of tales,

Please give me a language,

So that I may remember

All that was,

And all that ever will be. 

Ovid, Master of tales,

Let me taste that first violet sunrise,

And let me exhale all my sorrows—

In that last crimson sunset.

Ovid, let me tread a path that I already know so well—

But have forgotten.

Ovid, give my existence,

Give me a Light. 

Book II:         

As I gaze at the cosmos, a shooting star falls

Streaking the thick black film above.   

Is that you, brave Phaethon, falling out of the night sky? 

O Phaethon,

Your father, Phoebus, his heart is so broken now:

And you have left only scorched land in your wake. 

Look at the aired desert that surrounds Dear Dirty Bozeman. 

And look at this tree I lean against,

Look at the enormous globs of amber your sister’s the Heliades weep. 

Dear Phaethon, we cannot all follow in our father’s footsteps.

In fact, sometimes, it is best not to succumb to their sorrows.

And with tomorrows daylight,

Your father’s said heart will mount the chariot that ruined you. 

And yes,

Tomorrow there will be light,

But that light will be given in a pain that bathes all.

And where destruction emerges from such tragedy,

There Jove the powerful (a giver and taker of life) will be,

Mending the scorched land.   

With such a narcotic power, however,

And such a sense of masculine entitlement,

Look how easy it is for him to disguise himself—

After dutifully replenishing the earth—and to justify the rape of that virgin,

Callisto.

And what is to be of this nymph so duped,

By he who is supposedly so great.

This poor nymph is turned into a lonely bear, by jealous Juno.