Book news: Polyhymnia (ed. Taunton 2023)

To unite sacrality with beauty isn't so easy... but a new anthology aims at doing just this.

In antiquity there were nine Muses, goddesses of the fine arts. The Muse of sacred poetry and eloquence was called Polyhymnia. And she has given her name to a new anthology: Polyhymnia -- A Collectanea of Verse.

The tome is edited and designed by Australian author Gwendolyn Taunton. The page count is 116 and the format is five by eight inches. You can buy it here.

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The foreword presents the muses in general and Polyhymnia in particular. Then it discusses the sacred as such, for example juxtapositioning it to "the profane". The two can coexist and invigorate each other.

The sacred kind of needs the profane and vice versa.

Now over to the poetry, to the element of beauty also mentioned in the foreword. Again, Polyhymnia was the Muse for hymns and eloquence. And to praise something in a memorable way you need style, flair, a certain musical mood. And, to make a long story short, books seriousy treating the sacred, especially in relation to beauty, is rather uncommon today. So the ambition of this book can't be overpraised.

This book can be seen as aestheticism in motion, an art lover's creed anchored in the "vertical" dimension. Anchored in the astral world, the ideas, pleroma, nirvana, heaven.

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The sacred... looking at the book's content, what does the poems proper say about it?

I personally have three poems in this book. They are, Infinite Opulence, Spera in Deo, and Byzantium Aquarium. They all kind of relate to sacrality and "the astral".

And the rest? Not all of them have that connection to the verical dimension intimated above. Both the sacred and the profane are acknowleged. Overall, I'd say there is a "mindful" element present. Converesely, there is nothing of "surfing on the net, taking drugs, worrying about current war x" -- none of that...! Here is aimed at something more substantial. More timeless. Not necessarily giving us "divine hymns" all the time. But that indefinable area of "something else, something beyond the Beyond" is generally trod and explored in this volume.

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The other poets except for me in this anthology are: Katya Ganeshi, Stephen Nyandoro, David William Parry, Dani Ringrose, Aubrey Savage, Cody Sexton, Gwendolyn Taunton, Hilary Thiele, G. R. Tomaini, and Azsacra Zarathustra.

The design of the book is excellent. Except for the pertinent cover we have quaint title pages and other details giving you value for money.

As a contributor I can't judge this book wholly impartially -- but -- the book has a unique aura and the reader appreciating new, mindful stuff, with an aesthetic edge, should consider buying this one.

Buy the book on Amazon.com.



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