Brooke Ellsworth. The New Megaphone,
$6.50 + $1 shipping, letterpress (28p)
The
subtitle of Brooke Ellsworth’s chapbook Thrown
is “A Translation,” and the A is an important
word here because the chapbook isn’t a traditional translation. Rather than clarifying Ovid’s Metamorphosis into English, as has been
done many times before, Thrown translates
the classic into the contemporary. The
three-poem chapbook focuses on the story of Echo and Narcissus, and instead of
dwelling on the end point the way many of us probably did in high school—the
narcissus flower, the perils of narcissism—Ellsworth is more interested in
metamorphosis itself, in “the change of bodies into new bodies.” Ellsworth tells the story we know with lines
spread across the page and in conversation with each other. She employs an innovated use of & to
create words like “h&” and “underst&ably.” The reader is not told the story through
linear narrative, but sees Echo’s plight play out in language and line:
“& he
gave absorbed Echo such meaninglessness to braid in response.
of me of me of me
touch me
touch me touch me”
Thrown is Echo and metamorphosis
together: repeating what has been repeated so long, while changing it into something
new. The poems don’t work to clarify
Ovid but to play off Ovid, to echo the less explored. (Spring 2014)
Purchase
Thrown HERE.
