TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

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Poems Inspired by Book 6

>>Featuring:

Carol Robson and Nat Hall

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Silky Weaver

(Arachne and Minvera)

by Carol Robson

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Weaver of tales
resplendently regaled
self-indulgent
from humbleness,
interlacing her stories,
gathering her fame
in silkiness
of living threads.

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Disguised challenge
old woman confronts
respect the goddess,
silky weaver
in defiance
unbending
that her substance
of threads
of weaves
are the finest
to behold.

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Battles of weavers
spinning their tales,
tapestries in arrogance
silky weaver
ridiculing
scorning
the Gods
in weaves
of their
debauchery.

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In ire
silky weaver
encounters
wrathful goddess,
striking silky weaver
in anger.

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Atonement
head hanging shame
by the weaved noose,
then in pity
resurrection
of silky weaver
to poisonous
silky spinning
Arachnid.

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©Carol Robson 2013

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Spinning Spirits

by Nat Hall

Inside her web of dreams,
she feels world souls
pass through
her
hands,

thinnest of yarn,
white filaments caress fingers
as she sits tight behind
her wheel.

She knows
the beauty of
each thread, rhythm of
her foot on treadle, the joy with which hooked flyer spins
in a rengaine…

Apparatus built for a song.

Her eyes,
drawn inside
every ounce of wool
she washed & brushed with
so much care
now looks
fine silk;

she does not
listen to
others,
but
a
north
wind that
filters through
the wooden frame of
her own gift…

For days on end,
she simply stops to
watch the clock,
as spinning
spirits
fill
her
heart.

She does not know,
she will be punished for
her deed, as jealous
hands are told to
turn her
mortal
skills
in
a
new
shape,
her abdomen
became her wheel.

© Nat Hall 2013

Inspired from the tale of Arachne & Minerva

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You can find out more about Carol and Nat here: 

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Tags: Arachne, Carol Robson, Collaboration, Metamorphoses, Minerva, Nat Hall, Online Poetry Collaborations, Ovid, Ovid's METAMORPHOSES, Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 6, Perseus, Poetry, Poetry Collaborations