The book of poetry Among the Goddesses by Annie Finch is an epic libretto for anopera, and as such, set its sights on the public as trustee of the private. Thejourney is presented as a Libretto in Seven Dreams, to be performed before a liveaudience. This long poem in seven dreams dramatizes a journey in contemporarytimes, from Oregon to San Francisco, in which goddesses from ancient timesexert their influence through a series of visits to guide a troubled woman asshe loses a friend to death, is raped, has an abortion, finds retribution, andgives birth to a daughter. With an emphasis on form (drama, epic, and lyric), Finchis able to cut across time as she addresses the cycle of birth and death, thejourney in search of retribution and identity, and the pain of self-knowledge.

In the preface, Finch explains that shewrote the eight books to honor eight goddesses (reduced from nine) in dactylicmeter, “to evoke the rhythm of ocean waves and the depths of female power”(Finch 9). The invocation reads as follows:

One plumeof salt-spray thrown up by a rock-face,

Onepebble left on the shore where it lands.

There isno end if there was no beginning,

So helpme to tell where this ending began,

Gatheringwomen who touch, who honor,

Who loomtraditions through the body of earth.

Pleaselend me your voices, and some of your stories,

To spiralthis shell through the layers of sand.

When itbegan, I was travelling in Oregon–

                        (Invocation,21)

Inthe imagery of a vast ocean and mysterious chambers of a shell, women involvedin weaving and story-telling, and the philosophical juxtaposition of beginningand ending, Finch presents this appeal to a higher power in broad strokes. Theprotagonist, a young woman, Lily, born of incest, leaves her family andjourneys alone, repeating the ritual chant of the names of the goddesses as shegoes: “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna.” She also repeats linesfrom the invocation as she wanders:

Onepebble left on the shore where it lands,

One plumeof salt-spray thrown up by a rock-face…

There isno end if there was no beginning.

One plumeof salt-spray thrown up by a rock-face.

The repetition of lines lends itself tomusical form, reinforces cyclical nature of experiences between mortals andgoddesses.

Soon she arrives at the house of Eve,an elderly artist who lives by the ocean, who invites her to stay, becomes agood friend, and then dies of old age.

Eve was agarden, and her words reached down

Into thefertile, unashamed soil

To soakup the rain of a living, long story.

Her hairtossed white patterns bare trees could have made

In longwinter sunlight, she was so old–

And aseach quick season passed over her body

She hadlearned not to fill it with anyone’s power

Excepther desire–to open it freely

And letthe clear goddesses make it their own.

            (ActI, Scene I, 28).

Thisportrait celebrates the integrity and independence of a woman’s sovereignexistence and her mission to preserve her story to pass on in such a form thatthe goddesses could take it and keep it. Thus Eve preserves a piece of the pastand she knows it and keeps it from oblivion. This passage also presents thefeminist politics of the work: soil is unashamed, where words can thriveunaltered by overbearing judgment, and desire is solely personal, having disassociateditself from the urge for another’s power.

Each stage of Lily’s journey is markedby the presence of a particular goddess. After the death of Eve, Isis comes inthe form of a young child, who grieves with Lily. Later, with Astarte, thegoddess of fertility represented by a column of rosy sandstone, Lily learns toplant trees. She is raped in a churchyard by a man who accuses her of being awitch. After visiting Diana, who runs a café in San Francisco, she understandsthat she must seek out Hecate, the Queen of the Witches and goddess of crossroads.In the presence of Hecate she understands that she has become pregnant as aresult of the rape.

Hecate,Hecate, what have you told me?

First adeath, then a rape, now a pregnancy?

Hecate,Hecate, now am I pregnant?

Hecate,goddess of the crossroads

Loomingabove me, your face like a tomb,

As youenveloped my day with your darkness,

Theoldest, haggard face of the moon

Swunginto place like a sky above me,

Coveringme with a solitude.

(Act II, Scene vi, 59).

Underguidance of Hecate, Lily will find the courage to terminate the pregnancy. Inthe dactylic chant “Hecate Hecate,” one can feel all the anguish expressed bythe one facing this horrific challenge. Lily’s cry resonates. It is the cry ofthe vulnerable in need of deliverance.

This invocation to the frighteninggoddess Hecate, the haggard woman at the crossroads or doorways to death andlife, fulfills expectations of a cry from the heart that have been prompted bythe subject matter. I find that I crave more poetry like this passage to Hecatethat looks inward, yet the form of the work as a whole is structured to appealto audiences in public. The book even includes, on the last pages, a self-helpguide with a list of suggestions for a post-abortion ritual, complete with thecreation of an altar and sacred space, singing of songs, and saying good-byes. Doesthe inclusion of such an appendix, its determination to tie the text to thelife, distract from the poetry? If anything, it is a sign of the times,directed at a public that has declared that the very topic of abortion istaboo. Finch reinforces the need for the ancient myths to dramatize what collectivelywe do not understand. She keeps her focus on a society that would forgive womenwho have had abortions where no other resources exist.