Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “A Season in Another World”

AIn his new chapbook A Season in Another World, British poet Matt Duggan takes on a journey. The 21 poems in the collection use words as a kind of travel guide, whether it is to look through the window of time, or arriving in Venice and its Island of the Dead, or wandering through a dark forest. These are poems steeped in legend, myth, fable, and fairy tale; where else does a dark forest “leak bare light” but in a fairy tale?

Duggan has been previously inspired in his poetry by myth and legend. His 2011 collection Underworld: The Modern Orpheus was a retelling of the legend of the musician and poet who could charm all and also served as one of Jason’s Argonauts, looking for the golden fleece. The poems of A Season in Another World are less concentrated on one theme or character but display a strong sense of connection with myth.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

We call her name

She walks in Homer in a robe

of saffron; in Virgil she lies in a bed

of saffron. Her wonder intrigues

Shakespeare, and Tennyson,

even Thoreau watches her crisp

the pond’s edge. It takes a later time

to turn the dawn into darkness,

the light fractured and torn

into ragged shreds of memory.

Turning to the light as we call her name,

we hear only the echo 

of a terrible silence.

In Greek mythology, Aurora is the goddess of the dawn.

Illustration: Aurora, acrylic on wood panel by Mike Hale.

"Underworld: The Modern Orpheus"

The Greek myth of Orpheus has long been a a subject and theme in Western literature, art and music. The story of the musician and poet who travels to Hades to bring his wife Eurydice to the land of the living is one of the great love stories.

British Poet Matthew Duggan has rendered a contemporary account of the myth, in a sequence of 16 poems. I have a review of the work over at TweetSpeak Poetry. Check it out and let me know what you think.