Dead Language

<p><em>Dead Language </em>chronicles the journey of a daughter searching for her mother in the underworld of grief. As the poet wanders she encounters memories as well as features of the imagined underworlds of Homer Vergil Dante Hieronymous Bosch Lewis Carroll and others. These form a psychological landscape of mixed emotions: disorientation guilt gratitude regret longing depression resignation. The poet struggles to find a language adequate to comprehend and compose the mother a Latin teacher who refused to use the term dead language insisting the ancient tongue lived on. Finally the poet emerges from the underworld acknowledging that her mother like the dead language is embedded in the etymology of the living.</p><p></p>