Annie Finch
poet, writer, performer
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Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams

Among the Goddesses is a work of ritual poetic theater that places abortion in a sacred context. Finch’s “epic libretto” traces the harrowing  journey of Lily (Lilith) through encounters with seven archetypal goddesses: Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, and Inanna.  As Lily moves through friendship, loss, rape, and finally a mythic experience of abortion, she discovers her own spiritual strength.  

Combining rhythmic, narrative, and dramatic vocabularies, Among the Goddesses evokes the communal, oral origins of poetry and the archetypal roots of women’s power. The work can be approached in three ways: sung to music, performed as ritual theater, or read in book form as a feminist epic poem.  However, it is encountered, Among the Goddesses voices the power of the goddess and of poetry in today’s culture.

Publisher: Red Hen Press
Publish Date: October 1, 2010
Pages: 88
Language: English
9781597091619

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No art form is as extravagant as opera, and Annie Finch has made a ravishing contribution to it–and to the poetic traditions behind her dramatic encounter with the goddesses. The warp and weft of poem and libretto are designed to reveal the song at the heart of the verse, the characters who pulse within the lines. Her book cunningly becomes a stage on which are enacted inspired rituals of beauty and power. A remarkable achievement!

J. D. McClatchy, Yale University

 

From The Publisher

In two intertwined songs, a feminist epic poem and a dreamlike opera libretto, Among the Goddesses traces one woman’s harrowing mythological journey of discovery. Tutored by encounters with seven Goddesses, both frightening and nurturing, Marie/Lily is tested by loss, rape, and abortion as she finds her community and her spiritual strength. This magical book embodies the goddesses in every woman and gives voice to the power of the feminist spirituality movement.

Excerpt

Invocation

One plume of salt-spray thrown up by a rock-face,
one pebble left on the shore where it lands.
There is no end if there was no beginning,
so help me to tell where this ending began,
gathering women who touch, who honor,
who loom traditions through the body of earth.
Please lend me your voices, and some of our stories,
to spiral this shell through the layers of sand.
When it began, I was travelling in Oregon . . .

Awards

More Information

 

From the Judges’ Citation, Sarasvati Award:

“Winner of the poetry award was Annie Finch for Among the Goddesses (Red Hen Press). In making their decision, the judges praised the poet’s penetrating connection of mythic figures with contemporary women’s issues as well as the bold centralizing of the conflicted issue of abortion at the book’s center.

The crafted narrative that links the individual poems was also singled out for praise by judges who noted that “the American reading public is less comfortable with non-narrative forms, so providing a strong story that draws the reader through the book was a decision that opened this intensely-crafted work to more readers.” Yet the individual poems themselves were also praised as “high-caliber and high-octane poems in diverse voices” as well as “breaking away from the overwhelmingly self-centering personal voice that limits much contemporary poetry, while retaining the immediacy of dialogue.” A final unique quality praised by the judges was the potential of the work for public performance, which opens the work to larger audiences as well as to collaboration with artists in other media.”

Links 

Annie’s Column “Choice Among the Goddesses: Or How I Finally Wrote About My Abortion”

Reviews

 

No art form is as extravagant as opera, and Annie Finch has made a ravishing contribution to it–and to the poetic traditions behind her dramatic encounter with the goddesses. The warp and weft of poem and libretto are designed to reveal the song at the heart of the verse, the characters who pulse within the lines. Her book cunningly becomes a stage on which are enacted inspired rituals of beauty and power. A remarkable achievement!

J. D. McClatchy, Yale University

 

 

No art form is as extravagant as opera, and Annie Finch has made a ravishing contribution to it–and to the poetic traditions behind her dramatic encounter with the goddesses. The warp and weft of poem and libretto are designed to reveal the song at the heart of the verse, the characters who pulse within the lines. Her book cunningly becomes a stage on which are enacted inspired rituals of beauty and power. A remarkable achievement!

J. D. McClatchy, Yale University

 

 

Annie Finch’s Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams delivers a forceful tale of abortion, fraught with classic tension. Here, human will brazens out fate and mingles with goddesses. Here, an archetypal woman faces a decision as old as humanity.

The Tower Journal

 

 

Among the Goddesses is beautiful, and a book rare to find in poetry, playwriting, or anywhere else for that matter. I say this because it engages spot on with the sacred power of Death in relation to the reproductive power of women. It is so hard for people in our culture to face and understand this primal truth of earth being. This book will be very helpful to women who have been struggling to come to terms with the spiritual side of abortion.

Linda Weber, counselor and author of Life Choices: The Teachings of Abortion

 

 

We have an opportunity in reading this amazing work, to call in our power, connect with the goddesses, and understand something truly core to being women.

Jane Galer, Poet and Shaman

 

 

Among the Goddesses is a bold experiment. Magical, mystical, musical, it charts a woman’s journey that reverses the journey of Odysseus. What is it to be aided by goddesses, if we are women? What is it to face death, and to cause death? How do we become ourselves? “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innanna” may be the mileposts of any woman’s journey toward freedom.

Alicia Ostriker, author of The Book of Seventy

 

 

In words that soar but are never obscure, Annie Finch tells of Goddesses who have returned offering threads of meaning with which to weave our lives anew. Sing to us, dear Muse

Carol P. Christ, author of Rebirth of the Goddess

 

 

Among the Goddesses gives epic treatment to distinctly female epic concepts. The repetition of the poems’ lines juxtaposed with the lines in the libretto to mimic ritual is formally complicated, impressive, and ambitious. This is a book that treats female spirituality with reverence.

Stacia M. Fleegal