The Iliad Book XXII: The Death of Hector

And Achilles swift-footed
he spoke filled with anger:

‘You’ve screwed me, Apollo,
you biggest headfucker of all the gods,
you turned me here now
from the tall city wall
and those many men
who could have been dusted
before they slunk back home to Troy –

Completed during 2004 and 2005, this translation of Book XXII of Homer’s Iliad moves the tradition of classic Greek and Latin translation into the realm of experimental American poetry. Following in the footsteps of Pound’s Homer and Zukofsky’s Catullus, Jarnot reconfigures a pivotal moment in Homer’s epic tale of warfare. Dedicated to the memory of people who just keep killing each other, this new vision of a classic text a poignant read in our present culture of boundless warfare.

Lisa Jarnot was born in Buffalo, New York in 1967. She attended the State University of New York at Buffalo and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Since the mid-1990s she has lived in New York City. She has edited two small magazines (No Trees, 1987-1990, and Troubled Surfer, 1991-1992) as well as The Poetry Project Newsletter and An Anthology of New (American) Poetry. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: Some Other Kind of Mission, Ring of Fire, and Black Dog Songs. Her biography of the San Francisco poet Robert Duncan is forthcoming, and she recently completed a novel called Promise X. She teaches at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and at Brooklyn College, and has given lectures and readings throughout the United States and Europe.