Tags
antigone, art, marie slaight, mythology, poetry, review, silence, terrence tasker
And sing / My bitter praises / To nails / And flint / And flesh….
In this fierce, rich and allegoric collection of poetry, artist Terrence Tasker and poet Marie Slaight explore the tragedy of Antigone.
Slaights poetry, written in the 70’s and first published this year, is not aiming at a narrative. Readers hoping for a modern re-telling of the Greek myth might find themselves disappointed. Instead the sparse, fragmented poetry of Marie Slaight explores the inner life of Antigone as it centers around the themes of anguish, lust, pain and betrayal.
The short book – it is only a little over 90 pages long – is structured into five chapters, that are each concluded by one of Taskers somber, mask-like charcoal drawings. It is not easy to pinpoint the purpose of those chapters, but on closer reading their thematic center of gravity seems to gradually shift. So does Antigones voice. Whereas in the beginning her words at times seem cried out loud to be heard, in the last chapters the word ‘silence’ slowly takes center, appears over and over again in lines like:
No words / Only the gaping, silent scream // Go inside / Until one word / Is blood. Until then. // Silence //
As if her voice has slowly become muffled.
And then comes the end, the ‘St. Lawrence and Pine’, which left me puzzled. I won’t say more.
This book is strong potion, almost archaic in tone and feel. I’d recommend it.
With many thanks to NetGalley and Altaire Publications for the ARC
die gerettete Zunge 