FATES: The Medea Notebooks; Starfish Wash-up; and overflow of an unknown self

by Ann Pedone, Katherine Soniat, and D. M. Spitzer 

For our fourth Tribus, we present Fates, in which three poets—Ann Pedone, Katherine  Soniat, and D. M. Spitzer—weave destinies by reimagining stories from the past. The  books of Fates resist retellings. Instead, they reopen stories we have been carrying with us.  They explore the limits and possibilities of form, testing the poetic line. And they invite  new voices to disturb the universe. Each book of this Tribus, at once a daring translation  and a rich original work of art, offers a distinct poetic voice. Yet, when read together,  the books of Fates transform into a collective love song, three disparate poets all singing  resolute, all singing luminous. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Ann Pedone is the author of the chapbooks  Th e Bird Happened (Leave Books), perhaps there  is a sky we don’t know: a re-imagining of sappho  (Cup and Dagger Press), DREAM/WORK, and  Everywhere You Put Your Mouth (Halas Press).  

EXCERPT FROM THE WORK “Medea’s Prologue” 

I made of their flesh 

no more than a sieve. 

I had no idea what she 

meant by this but 

maybe it was 

just a bad translation. 

I looked at her and all 

of the earth’s matter 

fell from her face. 

Come, 

let’s count out all 

the different ways 

there are to enter 

a woman’s body. 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Katherine Soniat’s Starfish Wash-Up is her  ninth collection of poetry, to be published in  spring, 2023. Other titles include Th e Swing  Girl (LSU Press, 2011), Bright Stranger (LSU  Press, 2016) and Polishing the Glass Storm will  be available through Louisiana State University  Press in fall, 2022.  

EXCERPT FROM THE WORK “Th e Magical Age of Quitting” 

But please let’s return to my perfect outrage: how can some duplicitous voice then warn me, do be careful where you travel 

after birth? 

Entanglements drag us through time. Foreshadow. Post-shadow, 

or preemptive strikes of magic 

matter not at all 

for I did it. . . it was me/Telemachus 

who was born and took on that status as trophy sacks of grain for rats to eat in winter. 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

1. D. M. Spitzer is author of A Heaven Wrought  of Iron: Poems from the Odyssey (Etruscan  Press, 2016), abyss of departures, an image|text  collaboration with digital artist Sara Shiva  Spitzer (Hawai’i Review, 2020), and editor of the  volume Philosophy’s Treason: Studies in Philosophy  and Translation (Vernon Press, 2020). 

EXCERPT FROM THE WORK from “Canto 5” 

…a silent tide pools 

in the basin of your neck 

your mouth’s words 

before any words a breath 

sweetens the air across lips 

shed sacred names as petals as 

breath overfl ow the mouth 

in low-relief your hands 

blossom the light the earth 

a box of ivory inlaid with lapis 

a forest of columns marble white as doves upon a foundation of dark gold 

an image of smoking incense…

 

BOOK INFORMATION 

Available Spring 2023 7 x 10 | 232 pp 

$20.00 

ISBN: 978-1-7364946-8-4 

TO ORDER 

Call Consortium Book Sales and Distribution 

Toll Free: 800.283.3572 

FOR MORE INFORMATION 

Email: books@etruscanpress.org Phone: 570.408.4546 

etruscan press 

84 West South Street Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766 

570. 570.408.4546 

www.etruscanpress.org