Demeter Goes Skydiving

Award-winning poet exercises the profound mother-daughter trauma forged in the Demeter-Persephone myth with unapologetic modernity. What if Demeter, the timeless fertility goddess of ancient Greek myth, slipped through a crack into the twenty-first century, shook off her ankle bracelets, corn tassels, and garlands, and began a tour of our improbable culture? Award-winning poet Susan McCaslin exercises the profound mother-daughter trauma forged in the Demeter-Persephone myth with unapologetic modernity. This sequence takes on a novel life all its own: Hades steals away the maiden into a cult/culture of distorted body image, addiction, high anxiety, and rampant consumerism. Mother Demeter must negotiate this alien world of health clubs, paparazzi, and so-called reality shows locked in spiritual winter. McCaslin's lyrics are by turns profound, hilarious, and devastating as she journeys to the heart of a mother's love for her daughter. Here is poetry that seeks ties to the past inside the present, poetry that speaks to us all. Susan McCaslin is a prize-winning author of eleven volumes of poetry and eight chapbooks. Her work has appeared in literary journals across Canada and the United States. She has edited two poetry anthologies, is on the editorial board of Event, and is an editorial consultant for The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. She completed her MA in English at Simon Fraser University and her PHD at the University of British Columbia. After twenty-three years as an Instructor of English and Creative Writing at Douglas College in New Westminster, Susan is now a full-time writer, giving poetry workshops, talks, and readings. Susan lives in Fort Langley, BC. Visit her online at . . I am She, Isis gathering dismemberment in her arms. Mary weeping at the…