Ariadne's Thread

Book description

Pat Seman’s poetry draws the reader into a life set in a vivid Cretan landscape of sun, sea and rocks and, of course, mythology.

With imagery that finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, it creates a world in which death and beauty are woven together; where ‘even the poorest bone can sing’ and a snake, coiled in a hollow by the garden gate, far from being a dangerous aggressor is a ‘ hidden dark protector’.

The ancient myths are a powerful constant, even in those poems that address the contemporary realities of climate change and refugees, reminding us of the land in which many of them originated, Crete.

You may not know the place or fully understand the myth but, thanks to the richness and immediacy of these poems, when you close the last page you’ll have travelled to that Mediterranean island and brought something of its mysterious and mythical past into your own present.