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Ovid’s Creek #1, by Monica Angle

OVID’S TRACTACUS

What we cannot speak
about
we must indicate with

sighs, shouts, grunts,
tears, and shrieks.

Even a squirrel’s riot
of chatter
is better than a sage’s
austere quiet.

Ovid’s Creek #17, by Monica Angle

OVID’S TRAGIC SCENE

Sadly, Plato, the truth is not something I can
see. Blind, I can only clutch & grasp as it
slithers across the floor. I’m no philosopher –
but a tragic queen: Cleopatra, clasp the asp.

Ovid’s Creek #34, by Monica Angle

OVID’S CAVE, 2018

Sophocles, make me
brave
enough to be bleak.
I crave light, warmth –

tempted to plant fake
fluor-
escence in the cave.

Let me speak plainly.
I am Polyphemus.
I am not saved.

Ovid’s Creek #29, by Monica Angle

OVID’S GREEK

Virgil, I took a job teaching Greek in Peoria,
Illinois. Of course, I have no useful knowledge,
much less secret gnosis, to transmit. The best
I can do – through various cheap tricks, ruses –
is to induce an aporia, gap, breach, dark night
of the soul – in which to gather – wait quietly
together for hints, glints, streaks, strikes of light. 

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Monica Angle is a practicing artist. Her solo exhibitions include shows at the Burchfield Penney Art Center and the Fralin Museum of Art. Her work has been featured in public spaces such as Minneapolis City Hall and the Massachusetts State House, and it is part of many collections, both public and private. Her website is monicaangle.com. Sam Magavern is a writer and public interest lawyer. His work includes a non-fiction book, Primo Levi’s Universe, and two books of poetry, Noah’s Ark and Ovid’s Creek. In 2022 he founded the Calamus Project, a collaboration that brings Walt Whitman’s poems to life through films, a website, and programs. His website is sammagavern.com.

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