If you like poetry that rhymes and scans, you'll love the clever and remarkably well-executed poems on Greek mythology by Scott Emmons in his collection, Myth-Demeanors, and Chris Harding's accompanying illustrations are a hoot. Here's a taste of the Minotaur myth:
In Crete, where brazen goddesses wore all-revealing bodices,
Where wild and raucous rituals made palace rafters ring,
A man of inhumanity that bordered on insanity
Was known as mighty Minos, and he ran the place as king.
Malicious and deplorable, he harbored something horrible:
The Minotaur, a most bull-headed beast, to coin a phrase.
An ill-conceived atrocity of unsurpassed ferocity
Imprisoned in a Labyrinth – in other words, a maze.
It happened in that dismal time, that dreary, dark, abysmal time,
That Athens owed a debt to Crete and felt an awful crunch.
For rates were unbelievable. The payment deemed receivable
Was seven youths and seven maids to be the creature's lunch!
Read the rest of it! It just tumbles along.
These are great! They remind me of the Aesop & Son tales of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (but without the punny moral).
They should have little trouble finding a publisher.
Posted by: joated | June 11, 2007 at 05:47 AM