Cairns

Philip Memmer’s sixth book of poems retells the Sisyphus myth in startling fashion, punctuated with original etchings by artist John Fitzsimmons. Now available!

These brief poems are cryptic gems, flinting across the pages and constructing (stone upon stone), as the title suggests, a lyric and meditative drama. Sisyphus contemplates his destiny and his act of building the mountain he climbs throughout the timelessness of fate, his only companion the stone he pushes and that always eludes him at the summit. Poet Philip Memmer re-inscribes the ancient myth by giving personhood and interiority to both characters in this dialogue, as they struggle, grapple, argue, cry out, resist each other, and acknowledge their inseparability. As in a long, contentious marriage, Sisyphus asks: "Whose resounding silence / echoes your thoughts?" The stone's replies spark from the insights flashing out of these poems.

-Carolyne Wright, author of Masquerade and This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems