Daughters of Men

By Brenda Leifso

Shortlisted for the 2009 Lampman-Scott Award (for the best book of poetry in the National Capital Region)

Brenda Leifso’s first volume of poetry is a stunning debut: haunting, disturbing but resolutely beautiful. With an unflinching eye, Leifso explores the uncertainty of memory, the legacy of place, the powerful dynamics of sexuality and secrecy, and the violence inherent in family relations. Her central section, “The Theban Women,” is a multi-voiced re-imagining of Euripides’s The Bacchae; this drama in verse gives voice to women long silent, and together with Leifso’s more personal poems, it forms a book of exceptional power from a poet whose voice is as honest as it is beautiful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Release date: Sep 15, 2008
• ISBN: 9781926829005

Brenda Leifso

Brenda Leifso has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and was the executive editor of PRISM international. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, and has received the Bliss Carman Banff Centre Award for Poetry, as well as awards in the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival Writing Contest. She currently lives in Ottawa.

Book preview

DAUGHTERS of MEN

DAUGHTERS of MEN

Brenda Leifso

Brick Books

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Leifso, Brenda, 1977-

           Daughters of men / Brenda Leifso.

Poems.

ISBN 978-1-894078-64-1

     I. Title.

PS8623.E474D39 2008           C811'.6           C2008-900476-0

Copyright © Brenda Leifso, 2008

We acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program.

The cover photograph was taken by Carolyn Mount.

The author photograph was taken by Kirk Leifso.

The book is set in Bembo and Berkeley Oldstyle.

Design and layout by Alan Siu.

Printed and bound by Sunville Printco Inc.

Brick Books

431 Boler Road, Box 20081

London, Ontario N6K 4G6

www.brickbooks.ca

for Kirk

Contents

here is a voice that is not my voice

Tangible Evidence

Prayer for Rain

Documentary

Poor Thing

Rachel

Wild Strawberries

The Theban Women, a play in verse

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Long After Hera Sharpens Him into a Woman,

Teiresias Prays for Vision

Act I: Ferment

Silenae, Once Agave’s Slave in the Palace at Thebes,

Recalls the God’s Coming

Silenae Remembers Pentheus, Boy about to Be King

Agave, Hair Bloodied, Standing before Silenae,

Recognizes Her Rule

After Zeus Ignites His Lover Semele,

Agave Renounces Grief

Girls, Newly Born to Lowly Women,

after Being Left to Die

Zeus, Keeper of Earth and Sky, Shall Find Us

Silenae, Abandoned after the Birth of Her Brother

Agave Ignites the Childhood of Cadmus’ Daughters

Agave on the Birth of Aphrodite

Agave Speaks of Echion,

Her Husband Who Died Fighting

Agave on the Birth of Pentheus

Pentheus Renders Justice

Before Dionysus’ Coming,

the Strophe of Pentheus and Silenae

Agave: Sayings for Semele

Act II: Kindling

Summer Heralds Dionysus

Hymn to Dionysus

At Night, Teiresias Listening

Silenae’s Prayer

The Women Flock to Agave

In the Morning, Pentheus Finds Teiresias and Cadmus

Preparing to Dance

Pentheus Confronts Dionysus

Silenae Commands Pentheus

Act III: Rivening

Dionysus Seduces Pentheus

and Sends Him in the Guise of a Woman to Hunt Agave

The Maenads Prepare for the Hunter

Led by Agave, the Maenads Kill Pentheus:

Strophe and Antistrophe

When Agave Returns to the Palace at Thebes,

Silenae Bears Witness

Agave Slowly Wakes

Silenae Casts Out Agave

Epilogue

After the Death of Pentheus

Afterword

Collect

Second Psalm

Letter to Kirk: Vancouver

Eleventh Psalm

Heavenly Father

What do you want?

umbral

Bear

Letter to Dad

Letter to Grandma

If I Meet You Again on This Old Road:

Elegy for Grandpa

The Land Where Night Enters

Begin

Acknowledgements

here is a voice that is not my voice

a husk like the wind

my whittled-down bones

here is the shade you planted for me

in the wheat and the trees

the lie you still live

a husk like the wind

here are my