By Sarah Haman
A lyric feminist remix, Maria Zoccola’s Helen of Troy, 1993, (Scribner, 2025), follows in the footsteps of Louise Glück and Carol Ann Duffy, layering the modern atop mythology in her investigation of Helen, the woman circa Tennessee in 1993. Just as dedicated to the description of place as construction of character, Zoccola layers the personification project of Ron Koertge’s Olympusville, the feminist voice of the Melissa Febos’s Girlhood, and brings her debut to life with the sonic lyricism found in Louise Glück’s Averno. The landscape of Helen of Troy, 1993, rife with swans, the open road, and complex webs of family strife, poses an alternative perspective to the responsibility and role of some of the most famously loved and hated women of Greek mythology. The poems center the voices of Helen, the collective women of Sparta, and Helen’s mother / the swan in prose, lyric, and most impressively in golden shovels that use lines from The Iliad.
The book is most successful in poems where Zoccola blurs the character of the modern Helen with the Helen of myth asking her audience to reexamine Helen’s role within her community. This is perhaps most carefully displayed in “helen of troy is asked to the spring formal” which reimagines the competition for the classic Helen’s hand in marriage hosted by her own father as Zoccola substitutes money and horses with vinyls and Remington bolt-action rifles: “i took their gifts. i counted / them: dolly on vinyl, dolly on cassette, remington bolt-actions and / tripods of gold, mud covered jeeps with half-paid notes . . .” The confidence of this reexamination is rendered so well one may begin to question the details of the stories the book wields like a tool. This Helen will not allow herself to view her life as a passive participant—after the volta of this poem, Zoccola
concludes with Helen leaving on her own, “i listened. i went. i never came back”. Zoccola’s Helen is not a perfect individual by any means, but she finds freedom in her choices and enthusiastically participates in the space she carves for herself. The energy for these poems lies in the subject matter, with public understanding. Zoccola counts on her audience to know the Greek myths but also to understand the vitriol Helen of myth is met by ancient and contemporary audiences. Zoccola boldly leans into these feelings, presents a contemporary Helen in block text, a counter structure that allows Helen to be
exactly what you expect, while simultaneously surprising the reader every line break.
Equally as impactful as the series of Helen poems, Zoccola’s swan poems further characterize the similarities and differences between the modern and mythologized characters. Zoccola’s swan is not just a representation of the aftermath of sexual violence
(that connects to interpretations of the mythologies of Leda and the Swan) but also a piece of the book that further constructs Helen’s character as a product of violence. In “(interlude: the swan describes the next hour)” the speaker (Leda) considers the aftermath of her assault from her bathroom: “she thinks she will be able to see the change in the mirror—in the bathroom, the later . . . but she’s wrong there is no change. / she is exactly the same, except for the tangled hair and the marks / along her hips
where he bruised her, even though he tried not to.” The swan poems are quiet; they are tonally different from the clusters of poems that proceed them and serve as a waypoint for the reader to gather necessary context. They ask the reader to question their understandings of the contemporary character, asks them to dwell in empathy. While it is not necessary to be well-versed in myth to enjoy the project of the book, it adds a meaningful layer that works best when you are able to compare and contrast the stories of myth and Zoccola’s version, in fact most of the energy of the book comes from these comparisons. Family history is important in the book, just as it is important to
understanding the actions and motivations of the characters in ancient Greek myth, the context the collection crafts for the characters is impressively present in a short project. The final lines of the poem also offer a brief insight on Zeus (Helen’s father), who is mostly absent from the collection except during moments of reflection.
The earlier poems in the book are the most successful as origin for the contemporary versions of the Greek characters present in the story, and as the book progresses we get what we expect: the affair, Helen’s departure from home, the war, etc. all satisfyingly reimagined with salacious details. While some of the poems written as fragments leave the reader wanting more, their connection to the lyrics of Sappho may play a larger role in the book, though lacking in overt importance. While they added to the atmospheric narrative, the poems on their own could have been more impactful in an already short book.
Sarah Haman is a Ph.D student at Ohio University and the Assistant Editor (Poetry) of NOR.
New Ohio Review 