Orpheus in our World By Patricia Keeney

Orpheus in our World: New Poems on Timeless Forces Paperback – October 4, 2016 by Patricia Keeney (Author)

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Neopoiesis Press, LLC (October 4, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0997502126
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0997502121

This book is divided into four sections and is a new adaptation on orphic hymns.  The author was inspired during a meal in Athens.  It is a unique presentation of a poem and then a dialogue after illustrating the poem.  From the poem “Notus (South Wind)”: “damp air / flowers on the wing / pungent fluttering scents / playing with promise / heavy clouds heaving” and the dialogue after the poem:  she: not winter or spring / he: just a tease, ambivalent / she: like some people / he: why should we expect others / to be what we want?

About the Author

Patricia Keeney is an award-winning poet, novelist, theatre and literary critic. Born in the UK to a Canadian father and a British mother, she moved to Canada with her parents at the age of three and grew up in Ottawa and Montreal. A graduate of McGill University, she later did doctoral studies in the UK subsequently returning to Canada where she began teaching Creative Writing and English at Toronto's York University. A well-known critic for many years for CBC Radio, Canadian Forum, Scene Changes, Canadian Theatre Review and Canadian Literature, she continues her critical work both nationally and internationally in journals such as Arc and online, Critical Stages and Critically Speaking. Keeney began publishing her own poetry in Canadian journals and magazines in the late 1980s. In 1988, her first collection of poetry, Swimming Alone attracted serious critical attention prompting the British poet Ted Hughes to praise her "very natural voice" and "the real life burning away in these poems." Now the author of ten books of poetry and two novels, her poetry has been translated and published in French (winning the Prix Jean Paris in 2003), Spanish, Bulgarian, Chinese and Hindi while her Selected Poems carries an introduction by the distinguished Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. She describes her latest volume, Orpheus in Our World as an exercise in poetic archeology connecting the earliest and rarely translated Greek hymns with a post-modern theatrical dialogue. "Yes," she says, "these pieces can be read aloud like the ancient Greek hymns and played theatrically like ancient Greek drama." Coming into print at almost the same time as this volume is Keeney's latest novel, One Man Dancing (Inanna) - a very personal human and political adventure based on the true story of a Ugandan actor who became a political refugee in Canada after almost being assassinated by Idi Amin while working for Africa's most experimental theatre company, Abafumi. An avid traveller, Keeney has taught and lectured in Europe, Africa and Asia and India. See Patricia Keeney's website: Wapitiwords. ca.