Erebus, the dark and shadowy outer realm of the Underworld in Greek mythology, becomes a place of transition and becoming in Julia McCarthy’s Return from Erebus. The poems articulate this darkness with such keen and evocative vision and language that it appears to be made of light; they explore the richness of being, the ephemeral nature of our experience, and its inherent grief, where “jays smash like blue china/flung into the trees/and fly away mending themselves”; and you “hear rain and the river/the sound of water walking on itself again.”
Praise for Return to Erebus:
“It’s immediately evident when you start reading this collection that these poems are testimonies to a poet who can straddle internal/external realities with complete eloquence. There’s a mental/spiritual acuteness running through the book, an awareness that is keen and highly developed, both in terms of language and the fierce depth of vision. There’s a quiet urgency that carries the weight of intent and imagination perfectly. These poems take the reader through a multitude of experiences that are centred viscerally in the spirit, and its reactions to the universe. Intuition and art combine to bring evocative and graceful language to fruition on every page. Her voice is authoritative and subtle, rich with the resonances of lived experiences that are actualized, and laid out before the reader in a superb embodiment of attentiveness. They stir the mind and mend the heart because they show us the world with compelling, evocative words that lift us into the intimacies of light and darkness. Reading this book makes me ecstatic about poetry.” — Don Domanski
