Disasters of Love: A Defense of Delilah

Published in 2011, SOLD OUT

Perversely inspired by Milton's Samson Agonistes, seventy stanzas retell the Biblical tale of Samson in Delilah's voice with iambic verse and Chaucerian rime. This shift in vantage recasts details minutely, refuting her guilt and shedding light on the strife in contemporary Palestine. A coptic binding hinges the volume from the top, where etchings rest as friezes above paired columns of text. The etchings reference art historical works and relate to the poem by myth and metaphor. The entire Hebrew text from Judges is incorporated into these intaglios. Between the columns of the text, twelve lithographs from stone depict the brutish Samson engaged in his Herculean labors.