Eurydice as a poetic exercise
I listened in recently to a discussion of women directors and theater workers who came together to around topics like being woman-identifying in the theater world, how to handle classic works that are problematic because of racist or misogynistic subtext, and also what they see for the future of their work in theater.
I appreciated hearing from those working directly with others to produce a piece. This kind of community-based creation really calls to me. In particular I was attracted to Katie Mitchell’s outlook. Mitchell is a theater direct based in England, who proposes theaters should provide more space for new work but that even if classic pieces with problematic aspects are insisted upon, they can be reworked to center the piece from the point of view of the most disempowered person.
This idea moves the power to those who are silence. How does the entire narrative change when this is done? Where does the ending of this reimagined story land now? And how much personality can be imbued in the newly-centered character? Even more than that, what gains heft and importance in the story?
And, selfishly, what do I want to learn from this story that wasn’t available to me before? What can readers of this work learn that wasn’t possible before? Here is where I start my poems now.
Suddenly those who were easily characterized as victim, monster, whore, enigma, are made multidimensional. I’m not just talking about writing here. As I have slowly returned to a manuscript I began in 2016 that is centered on family history and my own upbringing, I can see now the healing I have given myself in allowing a larger view of who I am. This enables me to see more of those I’ve written about. I cannot insist on the many layers I have without attempting to understand others’ multidimensionality.
Y’all know I love an opera.
Why, right? I mean it’s so far away from the forms of expression that speak to my culture, background and understanding. And still… it calls me. I love the piercing voice that breaks through a dark cool theater. I love that the medium allows for ALL the feelings that, as a Latinx mujer I am accused of having too much of.
But I love that opera, like other arts disciplines has expanded beyond its boundaries. Hybridity is everything. And there are beautiful examples of it. The Metropolitan Opera has featured black librettists, new operas, unique casting beyond gender expectations. Guerilla Underground shares operas that play like documentaries or graphic novels. Opera Philadelphia funded operatic shorts that play like music videos, including drag performances and poetry. And everywhere those who are made other are making their way in.
Mitchell’s idea of re-envisioning work had me evaluating the beauty of Toshi Reagon’s opera, “The Parable of the Sower”, based on the Octavia Butler book, and centered on the protagonist, a young woman leading a new group in a dystopic land. And The Met’s recent rendition of Eurydice, which re-centers the story from her perspective so that she goes through her own transformation rather than be an object passed from her father to her husband to Hades. Reagon incorporates blues music traditions and choral voices. Eurydice has two masculine voices portraying one character. These innovative approaches are everything in that they become avenues in to the work. They shatter the bubble of conventionality toward real voices.
There is still work to be done, of course. I want more that addresses issues of inequality. As artists we want to speak plainly about what is happening in our world. And the struggle to do this within our art is constant. Slowly, the silence lessens though.
I looked more closely at the Eurydice myth and found myself wanting to write about her. To give her voice and to address the absurdity of men determining her value. I joke now that she only needed an antidote for the snake bite but, bitten and dying, Orpheus was too concerned already with the loss of her. I can imagine Hades, hearing Eurydice’s last breaths, was already preparing a place for her.
This is how I approach most of my work. I question what is in front of me to gain a larger understanding, even if the dominant voice is my own because I recognize that my own outlook has also been influenced by dominant culture. I’m a work in progress. My poems are forever a draft waiting for its poet’s greater understanding.
Eurydice
If I could do it again, I would not marry Orpheus.
It is a joy to love a musician, but that man would not
follow me to death, which is a sure sign he could not
give me real love. Him singing for my spirit,
as it spiraled down was no help.
What I needed was a viper bite antidote.
If I could do it all again, I would have gone ahead
and married him. Music is a lovely addition to the home.
I suppose a visit to the underworld was fate.
Though, I would have insisted my fellow nymphs
not persuade Orpheus to follow me
into the dark.
If I did accept him as a visitor there in the darkness,
I would have insisted he not sing. Why delay?
Just speak, man.
And why did Hades insist I follow Orpheus?
Worse, why did I feel compelled to follow?
To move from flame, return to body.
It’s a weakness to take the obligation to follow
this man. I should have said, over and over,
that he keep walking, keep on until the light is well
on his entire body, keep on until his body warms again.
Keep going until I tell say
I am whole again.
Don’t assume I can assure you.
I will not rely on a man to disrupt and decide my life.
My name means to show the vastness of space and power,
to show all of myself. Still, I became an apparition to survive.
A minor character in a sky full of gods. My resonant skin
a fine cloth stretched around gossipy bones.
Our lives have their inevitability. Moving from and through flesh
has let me see this man would die at the hands of women,
that he was meant to learn our significance, by one woman’s hands
or another’s. I carry the fragments and ash floating away
in flakes. My knuckles whittled down.
Flesh peering
into the past, reveals its small hurts.
Each time I’m touched
more of me wears away, the Underworld
unveiled as I reconsider what I would not choose.
I see now I had little say in this. I am a human
indulging in this life’s brief embrace.