Amphipolitan: Skirting the Transient City (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780796173546)

It is a natural human inclination to seek to define oneself by finding models in the world around us and society. From a very young age, I have sought to define myself through the literature I perused, through the books I read and the television shows I watched.

Amphipolis is a historical Athenian settlement in Thrace, a stronghold at the outskirts of Greek civilization, settled between the mountains and the sea. It is also the home of the fictional warrior princess, Xena.

Us modern women would like to see ourselves as Xenas: strong, beautiful and in control of our own destinies. But the women whose stories and contemplations may be found in this book are not like that. They are weaker, and more insecure.

In my life, deny it as I might, I have found more in common with the women who prevaricate, who weep, who follow their men everywhere. With the Elaines, who felt that their only certain way out of misery was death; with the Helens, pawns of mightier players who held the power of life and happiness over them; with the unnamed love interests and titillators who only exist on the fringes of storytelling. This book represents my years of wandering through their world, struggling to find my place. Trying to define how the chroniclers of the future might write about me.

Most of the poems in this book are either romantic, tragic or both. They are often written in archaic language, evoking a sense of the past to bring the people of bygone eras into our present day. Sometimes, they merely dream of simpler worlds, transient realities and the magic that is inherent to all poetry.

This book is dedicated to the women who could never be strong, who were never heroines. Weakness does not equate with worthlessness, and without questioning, poetry would not exist. Where the contemplations of civilization meet the untamed wilderness, in the crook of the mountains beside the sea, around the transient city, there our poetry may be found.