Penelope Awakes

I made a mistake today.  I thought my abscess was reducing.  I thought I could get up (sitting on the rubber ring).  So I did.  Not my brightest idea.

On the other hand I worked on a group of poems (nine in total ... four of them haiku for goodness sake) to be submitted as an entry for the Val Vallis poetry competition.  I called the group Penelope Awakes.  It's a set of poems that draw on aspects of and characters in The Odyssey.  Odysseus, Laertes, the dead crew of Odysseus, the Suitors and finally Penelope express themselves, each in their own poem.  Odysseus justifies his wanderlust.  Laertes struggles to come to terms with old age.  The dead crew lament their loss of life.  The Suitors anticipate the moment Penelope chooses (which never comes, of course, because Odysseus kills them all).  Penelope rejects the role of passive wife on the basis that if Odysseus can exercise free will so too may she.  (I concede I've made that bit up.) Immortals respond in haiku to each of the first four voices (Calypso to Odysseus, Zeus to Laertes, Circe to the dead crewmen and Athene to the Suitors).  None of the Gods know how to respond to Penelope's free will so the group of poems ends with her assertion of freedom.

I'm writing.  I'm trying out different poetic forms.  I'm trying to work with ideas as well as images and emotions.  And I'm submitting work to external assessment.  I may not win (the judgements of others are beyond my control).  The point is that I'm writing.
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