2 1 20 8
by DREW SKELTON
Your heart will break, your pain will cut so deep.
You will be punished and destroyed!
Your screams blazing out like fire
to pacify the gods.
Notes:
Drew remixed words and phrases from Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's Odyssey to reflect particular characters or moments from the Epic of Gilgamesh. This piece recalls Ishtar, goddess of fertility and war, deciding to punish Gilgamesh after he rejects her marriage proposal that was inspired by his post-battle bath.
The numbers below the title correspond to Odyssey book numbers. Drew devised the title by associating book numbers with letters of the alphabet (e.g., book 1 = A, book 20 = T). The list of numbers also indicates the book from which each line in the poem has been drawn (e.g., line 1 comes from book 2, line 4 from book 8).
