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12 Dec 2023
Spencer
Wood
New Moon
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Dec 27th
Nov 27th
The Maenad’s Child
After Euripides’
The Bacchae
A SON
boys like him are sent raving from homes
the speed of wind in each aching limb
never named in prayer excluded from libation
upstart gods creeping off to lonely places
searching for the pale gleam of dancing
their bodies are delivered by lightning
into ruins smouldering with the still living
wet with the sparkle of sweet drink
they give themselves to lecherous men
who strip flesh faster than you could wink
then send them streaming bare limbed
like a flight of spears turned loose
and this is how boys like him are made
to believe they are filthy with a pollution
of their own making
HIS MOTHER
once free from the curb of reason
was stung with a maddening trance
her anger her too potent royalty
threw all into wild confusion
foaming at the mouth her rolling eyes
Mother he cried touching her cheek
she grasped his left arm between wrist
and elbow set her foot against his ribs
and tore his arm off by the shoulder
spilling the blood she bore and clawed
clean the limbs that grew in her womb
his body now lies scattered
inside the walls of their home
that delicate crest of new grown hair
crisping
Behind the poem...
Of all the Greek Tragedies, Euripides’ The Bacchae is perhaps the most haunting – due, in part, to its overt queerness: Dionysis’ feminine beauty; the Maenad’s frenzied revelry; a foolish king dragging up to spy on his mother. It resists heteronormativity, violently. In this diptych, I use Euripides' language (trans. Philip Vellacot) and the characters of Pentheus and his mother Agave, to create an allegory of my own experiences of queerness and of coming out. In so doing, I reframe the play’s main theme: the condemnation of intolerance.
