These poems do not merely retell the myth of Dumuzi, the Sumerian god of spring who, for a moment of casual disregard, is condemned to the underworld by his consort Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddesss of love and war. While Dumuzi and Inanna preside here, the collection’s true protagonist is language itself, which Christopher Patton refracts as he pursues their stories through a kaleidoscope of poetic forms and practices. He reaches into the graphic realm as well: fragments of the myth become word grids recalling a sacred orchard, or images built up from the pattern on a scrap of security envelope lining. Mixing elegy, mischief, and experiment, Dumuzi exhumes the body of a god, only to find a rhizome dripping with linkages and metamorphoses.

Christopher Patton is a Canadian poet living in the United States, where he teaches courses on ecopoetics and visual poetry at Western Washington University. His asemic visual poetry has been shown at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Whatcom Museum. Patton’s books include Ox, whose first section won the Paris Review’s long poem prize, and Curious Masonry, an earlier volume of Old English translations. He blogs at theartofcompost.com.

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