![]() ![]() ![]() In Latin, he was known as Ulixēs or (considered less correct) Ulyssēs. The form Oulixēs ( Οὐλίξης) is attested in an early source in Magna Graecia ( Ibycus, according to Diomedes Grammaticus), while the Greek grammarian Aelius Herodianus has Oulixeus ( Οὐλιξεύς). The form Ὀδυσ(σ)εύς Odys(s)eus is used starting in the epic period and through the classical period, but various other forms are also found. He is most famous for his nostos, or "homecoming", which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War. Son of Laërtes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus and Acusilaus, Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility ( polytropos), and is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning ( Greek: μῆτις, translit. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Odysseús, Odyseús, IPA: ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( / juː ˈ l ɪ s iː z/ yoo- LISS-eez, UK also / ˈ juː l ɪ s iː z/ YOO-liss-eez Latin: Ulysses, Ulixes), is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. “The Kingdom of the Dead” is the title of Book 11 of The Odyssey, and certain images from my poem originate in that haunting scene.Head of Odysseus from a Roman period Hellenistic marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga, Italy It wasn’t personal for me until my brother died, and I could feel Odysseus’s grief at his lost companions. ![]() Like most American kids, I had read a couple short excerpts of Homer in school, and maybe looked again in that direction in college, but The Odyssey had never seemed especially relevant to me. I had an audio book of Sir Ian McKellan reading The Odyssey, and since I was spending a lot of time driving to see my parents, I would listen to that in the car, then when I got home, I would read back through the passages I had heard. The experience left me searching for something solid, something with real significance, and the only thing that really spoke to me then was The Odyssey by Homer. All of this happened just a couple of months after I had moved to a new town, started a new job, and was already feeling a kind of general upheaval. His early death brought so much grief, for my parents, for his wife and children, and also a sense of vacancy of how my own future might look. He was 14 when I was born, so I always knew him as more or less a grown-up, and in many ways, he was a model and mentor for me. “The Kingdom of the Dead” is one of a series of poems that are essentially elegies for my older, and only, brother, who died unexpectedly in 2009. Other work appears in recent or forthcoming issues of Prairie Schooner, Georgia Review, Appalachian Heritage, and Connecticut Review. His first poetry collection, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, was published by Texas Review Press in 2011, and won the 2011 Weatherford Award in Poetry from Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. in creative writing from Cornell University. in English at the University of Tennessee, and an M. Graves teaches writing and literature classes at East Tennessee State University, where he is Assistant Professor of English. This week we’re kicking off summer with a poem by Jesse Graves.
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