In Michele Evans' fine debut poetry collection, purl (Finishing Line Press, February 2025), the poet weaves variations on the title word. To purl can mean to swirl, eddy, or curl as a shallow stream flows over stones, or a murmuring sound made by the motion of water. It can also mean to weave or knit with a reverse stitch looping along a border or edge or. thread made of gold or silver wire. The echo with "pearl," while possibly not intentional, becomes apparent as the reader engages with the poems' shimmering language..

Michele Evans is a writer and educator in Northern Virginia. This first book shows the benefits a poet derives from many years of teaching and working with student writers. In purl, Evans reimagines aspects of The Odyssey as well as other Greek myths, as a tribute "for those thick spines/ long lost in translation,/ past voices flooding present,/ bottled up sea glass blues,/cloudy futures still battling/demons, monsters, and selves..." ("Dedication"). The book's epigraph invokes Phillis Wheatley, an eighteenth century enslaved woman who became America's first published poet, a reminder of those brought unwillingly across the ocean, voices silenced or ignored. Thus purl both demonstrates the ongoing relevance of classical mythology and the resilience of survivors of racism and misogyny, another weaving.

The first part of the collection, "swirl," presents watery images called to mind in connection with ocean journeys, reminding us of the first definition of purl. "if you look carefully/ you just might see me/bearing water stories…." ("aquaria") (The use of lowercase for titles softens the poet's voice, making her words yet more compelling while imparting a humility that draws us in to listen more carefully.)

Further along, the poet recalls the story of Theseus in "labyrinth":

when i was a child,

mama told me:

sticks and stones

may break my bones

but words will never hurt me.

so i chose

a big grey stone

from a little tin bucket

not to throw

or break someone's bones

but to write on it—

like it was paper….

          

            and

i walked

in circles

made of sticks and stones

going nowhere

and everywhere

at the same time

clutching

my big grey stone

and simple white card

that read:

keep your

head

up and your heart

open.

it was those words

not sticks and stones

that hurt me.

this time

mama was wrong.

The budding poet has wandered into the labyrinth of language that hurts but —as we'll see going forward—consoles and celebrates.

On the following two pages, this poem is shaped into two labyrinthine forms, one tightly coiled and the other airy and open, giving us alternate ways of considering the concept.

One of the legendary sirens of Odysseus' story is given voice in "sirenia":

i wail and warn,

sing and scream,

blare and blast,

pulse and pierce,

trumpet and toll,

four hundred years

without an orchestra

to amplify my arias

adrift in concert….

Wife to Odysseus and mother of Telemachus, Penelope is given her due, expressing her displeasure at the prolonged wait for her husband's return from the war:

how i wish my son was a mama's boy

so he could learn to love and not destroy

a woman's heart like his father did mine

twenty years ago when he left to fight

a battle far from our home's coastline

leaving me alone to raise his son right.

("penelopia")

And Helen, whose abduction triggered the war that took Odysseus away from home, is brought on stage and given heroic status, in "helenia":

• her face once plastered on posters will soon grace dollar bills
• for her efforts to break down slavery's walls with epic trips
• guided by a star and faith from the eastern shore through hills
• upstate, freeing many once shackled to one thousand ships.

In part 2 of the book, "stich," the chorus of women's voices continues, including the poet's own.

i rewrite their stories

to avoid sharing my own

autobiography — truths

hiding in plain sight

behind archetypes

greek, classical in nature

so different from my

heritage and culture

and yet also very much the same.

("melancholia")

This one passage sums up the poet's achievement in presenting these timeless stories with modern psychological insight in clear contemporary language, simple yet polished to a sheen like the pearl that the collection's title echoes. I'd love to be able to go on quoting and talking about the many fascinating reworkings of ancient tales but I leave it to the reader to follow up and experience the power and beauty by getting her own copy and perusing it carefully. One element of the attractiveness of the volume is the cover design and two illustrations inside the book, all by the poet's very talented son, Harrison Evans.

You can buy a copy of purl directly from the publisher, Finishing Line, here, or on Bookshop, here.