Patrick has had many poems published in such venues as YOUNG AMERICAN
POETS (1978), POET LORE (1978), CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER
(1990-91) and CLASSICAL OUTLOOK (1991), among others. He is also
translating Greek poets such as Sappho. He won 5TH Prize in YOUNG
AMERICAN POETS (1978) for his poem "Ecce Homo". The Classical World
and antiquity in general inspire a considerable portion of his poetic
subject matter, such as in his poetry collections AREPO THE SOWER
(1982) and WINGS OVER HELLAS (1984). Frequent travels in Greece and
Italy framed the experiences about which he often writes and his next
anthology will include many poems from annual time spent in Sicily.
Patrick has also illustrated his newest book of poems, HOUSE OF THE
MUSE: Poems from the British Museum, newly published in the summer of
2005.
He has also adapted an
unusual literary form - the palindrome poem - especially for myth. While the French poet Apollinaire wrote shaped poems, the
palindromic structure of a poetic literary unit whose words read forward and
backward is an ideal medium for the cyclical subject matter of myth. A few
of Patrick's palindrome poems - "Icarus" and "Labyrinth" - were previously
published courtesy of Martin Gardner, the former columnist of "Mathematical
Games" in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, in a journal called WORD WAYS in 1981.
Several of these new palindromic poems, written for and shared at the Sun
Valley Writers Conference 2005, are also offered here alongside some of
Patrick's previous ones. A book of Patrick's palindrome poems is also to be
published in the near future.
KITHAIRON
Patrick's 1990 poem "Kithairon" is being republished in the forthcoming book PENGUIN BOOK OF CLASSICAL MYTH.
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KITHAIRON
Pruning wild limbs on Mt. Kithairon
is no impediment to a vine god,
dismemberment to him is temporary
like the faith of mortals.
Here on this ivy mountain
some see his beard in the clouds
or his thigh knotted in a root.
But in the eyes of Pentheus
pruning was in troubled wood,
powerless to take root again
since his sad mother has both
knit and unknit the cloth of him.
Is it wind we hear howling on Kithairon?
Patrick Hunt |
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Poetry in the Song of Songs
Patrick Hunt has written a comprehensive literary analysis of the Classical
Hebrew poetry in the biblical SONG OF SONGS - known in Hebrew as SHIR
HA-SHIRIM. For the first time, every figurative language device in this
Hebrew poetry is annotated and examined (e.g., simile, metaphor,
paronomasia, euphemism, hyperbole, etc.) and often compared to Classical
literature.
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He has also rediscovered two Hebrew literary devices never
before known except in Classical Hebrew, although apparently lost for
millennia to literary criticism, and never before published elsewhere
(except in several articles of Patrick's previous publications with Peter
Lang Verlag in Frankfurt, BEATAJ 20 & 28). He has named these rediscovered
literary devices as 'concealed paronomasia' and 'multiple sensory clusters'
as the ancient literary criticism does not appear to have known Hebrew names
for them. This new book on the dense, subtle and likely erotic Hebrew poetry
of the SONG OF SONGS suggests parallels to much of the world's most
beautiful poetry both before and after and offers compelling reasons why
this biblical poetry is so rich.
Peter Lang Publishing
New book by Patrick Hunt
Due out in 2008
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 Read six poems excerpted from HOUSE OF THE MUSE
 View Example Illustrations from 'House of the Muse'
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