Dead Language - by Jeanne Emmons (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Dead Language chronicles the journey of a daughter searching for her mother in the underworld of grief. As the poet wanders, she encounters memories as well as features of the imagined underworlds of Homer, Vergil, Dante, Hieronymous Bosch, Lewis Carroll and others. These form a psychological landscape of mixed emotions: disorientation, guilt, gratitude, regret, longing, depression, resignation. The poet struggles to find a language adequate to comprehend and "compose" the mother, a Latin teacher who refused to use the term "dead language," insisting the ancient tongue lived on. Finally, the poet emerges from the underworld, acknowledging that her mother, like the dead language, is embedded in the etymology of the living.