Eating in the Underworld by Rachel Zucker
In Rachel Zucker's re-imagining of the Greek myth, Persephone is a daughter struggling to become a woman. Unlike the classical portrait of a maiden kidnapped by a tyrant, Zucker's Persephone chooses to travel to the Underworld and assume her role as Hades' queen. Caught between worlds-light and dark, innocence and power, a mother's protection and a lover's appeal-Persephone describes the strangeness of the Underworld and the problems of transformation and transgression. The arrangement of Zucker's poems reflects Persephone's travels between the Underworld and the Surface. Both spare and lyrical, they are written as entries in Persephone's diary and as letters between Persephone, Demeter, and Hades. The language-strange, urgent, direct-is pulled and changed as Persephone journeys from one world to another revealing the struggle of unmaking and remaking the self.
"The gods have risen to earth! Zucker's crisply intelligent, hauntingly sonorous treatment of the Persephone myth turns this ancient tale human, exploring the reaches of feeling, without losing any of the mystery of other worlds" - Cole Swensen, author of Such Rich Hour; "The state of Eating in the Underworld is (imagining) being dead so sensually and visually that one is seeing intensely being alive. The pleasure of it is there also, entered from its reverse side like Coeteau's mirror." - Leslie Scalapino, author of New Time
Rachel Zucker has taught at Yale and New York University. Winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Prize and the 2002 Center for Book Arts Award, her poetry has been published in APR, Colorado Review, Iowa Review and Pleiades, as well as in the Best American Poetry 2001 anthology. This is her first book.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780819566287 |
| ISBN 10 | 0819566284 |
| Title | Eating in the Underworld |
| Author | Rachel Zucker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Wesleyan University Press |
| Year published | 2003-02-26 |
| Number of pages | 80 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |