Ariadne Awakens: Instructions for the Labyrinth by Laura Costas
Source: GBF Paperback, 103 pgs. I am an Amazon Affiliate
Ariadne Awakens: Instructions for the Labyrinth by Laura Costas reimagines the Greek myth of Ariadne in short prose poems. There's no need to worry if you are not familiar with the myth because Costas provides you with an introduction to her character as it was developed ages ago. Her introduction serves as way to provide readers with a context that her alternate reality for forthright Ariadne springs.
In her opening poem, "Answering Machine," Ariadne speaks to us from some outside realm, and while she would love to hear us, speak to us, and tell us what happened, she cannot. We need to imagine it and speak for her, like Costas has done. Here, our heroine awakens in a different, more modern time. She's disoriented and fumbling to find her ground. "The rapid little flicks of your eyes produce upon you unrecognizable flesh that your bones should refuse but don't," the narrator begins in "Gyroscope." In "Hot Rod," the narrator urges, "Push your food to the floor."
Through these topsy-turvey poems, Costas is creating a world in which we can see how limiting a myth can be, that no one is just one thing or another -- hero or helper. We are all three-dimensional and multi-layered, and in some cases, we war with our desires, our practicalities, our "roles" in society.
Her poems also surprise us with their wit and humor:
"Security" (pg. 28)
Above the bed the ceiling cleaves. Beyond the cleft, around our necks, we've only keys. It's the locks that make the thieves. Or by turns, her unconventional thoughts about the society we've created and the blindness we all carry to its norms and expectations:
From "Civilization" (pg. 50)
... None of us thinks to crash the turnstiles, so, turned away, we carry on, rumor and reflex at fists for our attention, the lucky ones among us to forget in the morning all that we lost last night.. ... Like in "Sagittarius," Costas reminds us "this world was made to bend in." (pg. 92) Ariadne Awakens: Instructions for the Labyrinth by Laura Costas is more than a retelling or reimagining of a myth -- it is about the labyrinth of life, its twists and turns, its backward and forward steps, and the need for each of us to step outside the lines sometimes to find the truth of ourselves and our place in a world that makes little sense unless we provide it some direction.
RATING: Cinquain