Josephine Balmer's Chasing Catullus ventures into the border territory, the no-man's-land between poetry and translation, juxtaposing new poems with fresh versions of ancient texts, brazenly reimagining classical literature, wittily subverting epic works, overwriting the past like a palimpsest.
"Chasing Catullus ventures into the border territory, the no-man's-land between poetry and translation, juxtaposing new poems with fresh versions of ancient texts, brazenly re-imagining classical literature, and wittily subverting epic works. But there is a more personal journey here too. As Balmer points out in her preface, classical translation can provide poets with new voices, allowing them "to say the unsayable, to give shape to horrors we might otherwise be unable to outline." It also presents a dark odyssey of the soul, descending in and out of the underworld as Balmer responds to the death of her young niece from cancer, exploring difficult times and dangerous emotions with compassion and humor. These are poems that blur the difference between ancient and modern, familiar and unfamiliar: poems that push back the boundaries, bringing two-thousand-year-old jokes lo life, giving voice to contemporary loss and grief.
