Greek to Me

It was an odd turn for a Labor Day weekend, but I received a confirmation e-mail on Sunday afternoon from an editor who enjoyed reading a series of poems I wrote on ancient Greek myths and themes.  She's going to publish one of the longer poems . . . and I'm grateful.

Not everyone out there in the literary journal world appreciates the world of the Greek myth . . . themes which still speak to our time and place and station of life.  Having studied Greek for years, and reading widely as an undergraduate in Aristophanes, Homer, and Euripides . . . I found the world of the ancient Greek far more insightful than most.  I enjoyed parsing verbs, memorizing vocabulary, and discussing the significance of the ancient myths about Titans and travels and mythical journeys to the netherworld.

Knowing these Greek myths has helped me immensely in marriage, as I can point out that my wife is often like Medusa (she with the frightening snake hair) or that my kids often suffer from the Oedipal complex (where they would prefer to kill their father . . . among other things).  The Greeks did not suffer a lack of truthfulness in their literature or suffer a lack of deep psychological and social insights.

So, I thank the editors out there who still know the myths and find something of value in my weird Greek verses about Helen of Troy, or Bacchus (god of wine), or Poseidon (god of the sea).

Writing about these makes me realize how much I have forgotten and how my Greek, like most things ancient, has suffered from neglect and lack of use.  I can still recite verb declensions, can recognize the aorist tense vs. the active voice, but for the most part, when I pick up Homer, it's all Greek to me.

I just keep writing these poems and submitting them in the hope I won't forget too soon.