{"id":42624,"date":"2024-10-24T06:30:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=42624"},"modified":"2024-10-20T21:11:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T08:11:59","slug":"homing-from-the-ithaca-conversations-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2024\/10\/24\/homing-from-the-ithaca-conversations-series\/","title":{"rendered":"“Homing”: from the ‘Ithaca Conversations’ Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been talking poetry a bit more than usual lately (at least since the sad demise of the Tuesday Poem<\/a> community), mainly sparked by the Boosted campaign for the Canterbury Poets<\/a>, so in that spirit, it feels like time for a poem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Homing<\/em> is from the Ithaca Conversations<\/strong> series and (for those who don’t know the story) centers on Odysseus’s (aka Ulysses) return to his home island of Ithaca after twenty years’ away: ten years fighting in the Trojan War (The Illiad<\/em>) and ten years of storms, shipwreck, and sorcery (The Odyssey<\/em>), attempting to return home.<\/p>\n

Homing
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

He hears it, in every slap<\/span><\/p>\n

of wave against wood,<\/span><\/p>\n

as the ship cleaves water<\/span><\/p>\n

like a seabird, hears the word<\/span><\/p>\n

that he has hungered for<\/span><\/p>\n

through the lost years,<\/span><\/p>\n

whispered to him now<\/span><\/p>\n

by the sea as it bears him up,<\/span><\/p>\n

speeds him on like a lover<\/span><\/p>\n

to the consummation<\/span><\/p>\n

of his long-held dream<\/span><\/p>\n

of home:\u00a0\u00a0home<\/em>, lilts the sea,<\/span><\/p>\n

soft as a lullaby, and\u00a0home<\/em>,<\/span><\/p>\n

sings the wind, slipping<\/span><\/p>\n

through rigging, soothing<\/span><\/p>\n

him to rest, not to wake<\/span><\/p>\n

even as a clear dawn<\/span><\/p>\n

pares away night, reveals<\/span><\/p>\n

rocky shores and a green crag<\/span><\/p>\n

rising, not even to stir<\/span><\/p>\n

when the sailors lift him<\/span><\/p>\n

over the bulwark and down,<\/span><\/p>\n

splashing through shallows<\/span><\/p>\n

to leave him on shadowed sand,<\/span><\/p>\n

tender as a child smiling<\/span><\/p>\n

in his sleep, and dreaming,<\/span><\/p>\n

dreaming still<\/span><\/p>\n

of the long returning.<\/span><\/p>\n

(c) Helen Lowe<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Published in\u00a0JAAM 26\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>2008<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I observed in relation to another Ithaca Conversations <\/strong>poem, Argos<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, the sequence reflects my long held love of myth and legend. The<\/em>\u00a0Iliad<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0The<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Odyssey<\/em><\/strong> were among my earliest favourites, and the power they exerted over my imagination is best evidenced by the way they continue to infiltrate my poetry and short fiction. The novels I write are also centered around epic, legend and myth, both in what is loosely our world (Thornspell<\/strong>)<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and alternate worlds (The Wall of Night Series<\/em>.<\/strong><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Enchantments & magic…<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been talking poetry a bit more than usual lately (at least since the sad demise of the Tuesday Poem community), mainly sparked by the Boosted campaign for the Canterbury Poets, so in that spirit, it feels like time for a poem. Homing is from the Ithaca Conversations series and (for those who don’t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influences-on-story","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42624"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42632,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42624\/revisions\/42632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}