Eurydice
A Celebration of Death (publishing my first poetry chapbook)
She first came to me in class during the last semester of my senior year. At the time, I was only several weeks from graduating college, a major accomplishment for a first generation daughter of two Mexican immigrants. But the milestone was shrouded in the pain of a broken heart. Back then, I still hadn’t found my voice to be able to express the distress I felt regarding this heartache. So when I read a classmate's rendition of the classical Greek mythology about the musician Orpheus’ plunge into the underworld to resurrect his muse, Eurydice, who had succumbed to her death after having been bit by a viper, I felt a deep resonance. It was easy for me to relate to Eurydice’s fate: loving a musician, mad visions of snakes, a fall from grace to land in the underworld of her own heartache, the hysteria of it all only to find relief by surrendering to death. The myth gave voice to my experience and then my grief was given a name.
The First Draft
I was gifted a copy of Gabriella Mistral’s prose and poetry book for my 25th birthday. One morning, as I read through the pages, I was particularly taken by the melody of Mistral’s poem, “Esperándote,” which translates to, “Waiting for You.” The vision that I saw was of a woman sitting beneath an elder tree in anxious anticipation of her lover’s arrival, worrying the whole time that he would never return and that she would meet death before she met him again. It was tragic and even still, as I write this, I am overcome by nostalgia because the vision is a memory from a past life.
As I read Mistral’s lines, I heard the first and last lines of a poem forming within me, “I have been waiting for you under the old growth that looks down on the valley below / I am waiting, settling into my roots.” Moving quickly, I wrote the lines down in the margins of the page in my book before leaving the house for work only to continue writing at the office between checking patients in for their appointments. Initially, I had hated the first draft and left the poem buried with all the other manuscripts I had deemed as “throwaways” without even giving it a proper name.
A few months later, as I was sifting through poems to send to my writing professor and mentor, I came across the abandoned lines once again. With fresh eyes, I was struck–by the emotions of sorrow, by the imagery of grief, by the voice of my heart who had sung those lines.
Of course, it needed polishing, but as I became aware of its potential, I understood what it was trying to say. I moved a few lines around and created quick line breaks. Suddenly, a vision of a woman slowly sinking back into earth for a long rest overcame me and I hoped to capture the ease of that embrace in the final lines. Then, just as easily, I heard the faint sound of music coming from somewhere beyond the brush of trees. Finally, recalling the myth which I had read years earlier–and had continued to present itself in various and alternative tellings throughout the time since because she never really left me–I gave the poem its rightful name: Eurydice.
The Chapbook + Photoshoot
Though it was my intention to create a body of work, I hadn’t anticipated writing a whole chapbook centering the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with greater emphasis on the divine feminine’s perspective. Eurydice was purely meant to be a one off poem within a collection of poetry based on my musings. Soon enough, I began to have visions of the forest dwelling nymph running beneath old growth trees, and I wanted to give breath to that vision through film. Creating the world of Eurydice felt as natural as death itself, it was a body I was able to birth my grief into, and a body that was born to rest in the graveyard of my past life.
The original intention was to run around a forest in Southern Washington with my friend, Oralia, and my vintage point and shoot to capture the scene that way–with chaos and no clear direction, really. But when I explained my ideas to Marcel Mawulorm Johansen, a photographer based in Portland, when we had met at an artist retreat held at Suttle Lake, he immediately understood the vision and felt inspired to help me create it.
Last October, Marcel, Oralia and I drove an hour outside of Portland to a river in Washington. It was the only sunny day we had in over a month, and the last one we were sure to have for the rest of the year, which was crucial as I had planned to be partially nude in the photos and to swim in the river. The trees were all beginning to turn to rest for the cold season, their fallen leaves were an obvious marker of death and perfectly encapsulated the tone of Eurydice.
While Marcel took the photos and served as creative director, Oralia helped in assisting with lighting, equipment and costume. I want to give my deepest gratitude to Marcel and Oralia for their support in making the world of Eurydice come to life, without you two I wouldn’t have this cover photo that is everything that I had hoped it would be.
Oralia, you have witnessed my decay during my “Eurydice era,” encouraged my growth through all of my reincarnations since, and have loved every version that I have been and am becoming. Thank you for going along with all my wild adventures that the path of the poet has called me toward and trusting that I would make it.
Marcel, oh, how lucky I have been to have wandered into you along this path. You have blessed me with a friendship and artistic collaborator. Making art with you has been so natural and the easiest thing about this process. Thank you for encouraging me to reveal more of my heart to the world.
Collaboration, Editors, Publication & Gratitude
The original mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice centers around a musician and his muse, so naturally music is a large theme in this chapbook. What made the process of creating this project special was workshopping the poems with actual musicians, songwriters and poets alike. With the help and talents of Cristian Hobson-Dimas of Sleepy Gonzales, Andrew Stevens, the frontman of Silvertongue, Joey Luna Paz a.k.a. Luna Moth, and my long time friend and poet Luis Torres, the poems in Eurydice were nurtured with genuine care and love to become pieces that I am so proud to offer the world. Thank you all so much for valuing my vision, understanding my heart and nurturing my voice with compassion and curiosity to help me express myself with full resonance.
Recently, several of my poems featured in Eurydice were published in two literary journals. The first being “Wild Women which was included in the most recent issue of All Existing Literary Magazine. The next two, “Eurydice” and “Respice Finem”, were visual poems in collaboration with Marcel Mawulorm Johansen, and were given a home in PacificREVIEW.
In Honor Of
The process of creating Eurydice was a ritual of bowing at death’s altar as I had written this chapbook while processing the grief of losing several family members in succession over the span of five months and in between my first trip to Mexico City in the fall of 2022 for Día de los Muertos: my paternal grandparents, Graciela Camacho Molina, Audencio Molina Moreno, and their son, and my uncle, Antonio Molina Camacho.
While grieving is a painful and long process, what gave me solace was honoring the customs of my Mexican heritage through commemorating the dead and their passing within several poems. In a way, their death and the timing of it, helped me realize that dying is an immensely sacred process in a soul’s journey, and in their passing, they become an ancestor–a revered role in the family system. We can allow them life once again by telling their stories, remembering their lives and honoring them.
A Celebration of Death
While there have been many renditions and retellings of this classical Greek myth, Eurydice in particular focuses on the divine feminine perspective. This is because I felt that I had been guided through my own heartache by Eurydice herself. In forming kinship based off loss and the contemplating of death, I understood her story well as it reflected my own journey of descending into the underworld of grief. It was then natural for me to create the world of Eurydice.
In this story, death is experienced by two first loves on the precipice of adulthood as life forces them to grow up in the opposing direction of their dreams. For this, death is not sorrowful, neither is it cruel, rather it is the prayer called in by lovers who want the best for the other and know that it is ultimately achieved by following separate paths. One is guided by the dead along the tropical path, the other follows the music resounding from the grasslands.
And while many of the poems in “Eurydice” explore and express the confusion, anger and sadness of a breakup, that type of pain is not the purpose of Eurydice. Instead, Eurydice is about the pain that one experiences when, during the ending of a romantic relationship, there is a loss of oneself. For Eurydice it was death. For me, it was the death of the girl I had been when I had loved Orpheus, starry-eyed and naive, and the death of the girl who had wanted him to return. I am no longer her, and I am glad for it. Eurydice is a celebration of death.
✦★..˚ . . ✦ ˚ . ★⋆. ࿐࿔
Preorder Eurydice + Mini Chapbook Tour
If you wish to support me, pre-order a copy of Eurydice on my website (or click ‘Preorder Now’ below). The whole project is being published completely independently. From start to finish, I will be personally printing, binding and distributing copies—which means this chapbook is truly coming directly from me. At this time, I plan to do a small print run of 100-150 copies of Eurydice, so know that there is a limited amount and will only be offered for a limited time. Expected delivery time is Mid-July (Leo season).
Finally, I do plan to do a small indie tour to several major cities around The States, to attend poetry events and open mic nights. I’ll be in Chicago and NYC in the second part of June next month, and I hope to get around to San Francisco later this summer. If you know of any events happening in these areas, lets connect.
You can follow me on Instagram for more of my happenings in real time AND TO WATCH THE TRAILER FOR EURYDICE.
Greatest gratitude and many flowers to the support of my community and of course of my friends and readers. This love letter marks my 12 monthly newsletter, meaning that it has already been one year since starting Becoming Grass and sharing bits and pieces of my life and musings with you. While not at all intended, it is no coincidence that my 12 newsletter is an announcement of a chapbook I had not known was in the making for many years. But it has surprised us all nonetheless.
As always, I hope you are well.
p.s. a playlist I made that invokes the themes and spirit of Eurydice, because she is a musical muse after all…
Excited for your chapbook!