To understand me better, you all ought to follow me home

This post is both signal-boost and shameless self-promotion, which will be a neat trick if I can pull it off.

Ottawa Storytellers are fundraising for the Odyssey Project: a twelve-hour telling of the epic from Olympos to Ithaka with eighteen storytellers and all the gods, tricks, and tales that can be conjured from words and voices and listening ears.

I can't think of a better choice for an all-day affair. The Odyssey is a storyteller's epic: it is what Athene says she loves most about Odysseus.

εἰδότες ἄμφω
κέρδε᾽, ἐπεὶ σὺ μέν ἐσσι βροτῶν ὄχ᾽ ἄριστος ἁπάντων
βουλῇ καὶ μύθοισιν, ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐν πᾶσι θεοῖσι
μήτι τε κλέομαι καὶ κέρδεσιν

we two who know
guile, since you are by far the best of all mortals
at plans and stories, while among all the gods
I am famous for craft and clever ways

(Odyssey 13.296–299)

All that first night together in their olive-tree bed of twenty years, what Odysseus and Penelope do is tell one another the stories of the different kinds of hero they have been.

τὼ δ᾽ ἐπεὶ οὖν φιλότητος ἐταρπήτην ἐρατεινῆς,
τερπέσθην μύθοισι, πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐνέποντε,
ἡ μὲν ὅσ᾽ ἐν μεγάροισιν ἀνέσχετο δῖα γυναικῶν,
ἀνδρῶν μνηστήρων ἐσορῶσ᾽ ἀΐδηλον ὅμιλον,
οἳ ἕθεν εἵνεκα πολλά, βόας καὶ ἴφια μῆλα,
ἔσφαζον, πολλὸς δὲ πίθων ἠφύσσετο οἶνος:
αὐτὰρ ὁ διογενὴς Ὀδυσεὺς ὅσα κήδε᾽ ἔθηκεν
ἀνθρώποις ὅσα τ᾽ αὐτὸς ὀϊζύσας ἐμόγησε,
πάντ᾽ ἔλεγ᾽: ἡ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐτέρπετ᾽ ἀκούουσ᾽, οὐδέ οἱ ὕπνος
πῖπτεν ἐπὶ βλεφάροισι πάρος καταλέξαι ἅπαντα.

and when they had had their sweet fill of lovemaking,
they took their pleasure in stories, telling one another,
she of all she had endured in her halls, bright among women,
watching the wrecking-crew of suitors
who made her the excuse for much slaughter of cattle
and fine sheep and emptying many jars of wine,
while Zeus-born Odysseus told of all the trouble he had made
for people and all he he had sorrowed and suffered himself,
and she was glad to listen, and neither did sleep
fall on her eyelids until he had finished it all.

(Odyssey 23.300–309)

The performance is on June 16th. One of the incentives is an illustrated print of my poem "Leukothea's Odyssey 6," originally published in Goblin Fruit. That's the shameless self-promotion, but it's a lovely thing. The artist is Elizabeth Paxson.

Help them bring Odysseus home.