Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems

"What if Helen of Troy was a small-town beauty in Sparta, Tenn., with a crappy washing machine? What if absconding with a stranger launched not a single ship, but set a thousand tongues to wagging? The thought experiment might sound a little goofy, but in Maria Zoccola’s hands, the results are clarifying. These poems expand, complicate and enrich. Zoccola favors the golden shovel, a poetic form – like an acrostic’s more sophisticated cousin – that hides another text within itself. Her collection pulls off a similar trick, threading The Iliad into something wholly new."