In June the Labyrinth

By Cynthia Hogue

In her stunning ninth collection of poetry, In June the Labyrinth, Cynthia Hogue tells a deeply personal lyric of love and loss through a mythic story. This book-length serial poem follows Elle, a dying woman, as she travels a trans-historical, trans-geographical terrain on a quest to investigate the labyrinth not only as myth and symbol, but something akin to the “labyrinth of the broken heart.” At the heart of Elle’s individual story is the earnest female pilgrim’s journey, full of disappointment but also hard-won wisdom and courage—inspired by Hogue’s own composited experience with loss, in particular the death of her mother. Rooted in the idea of the labyrinth as a symbol for life, as in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe that Hogue would visit the summer of her mother’s death, these poems above all distill, fracture, recompose, and tell only partially—literally in parts but also in loving detail—the story of a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Release date: Apr 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781597095785

Cynthia Hogue

Described in the New York Times as having “a knack for intensity,” Cynthia Hogue has published twenty books of poetry, translations, and criticism, including such volumes from Red Hen Press as Revenance and In June the Labyrinth. She is co-author of When the Water Came: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina (interview-poems with photographs by Rebecca Ross), named a Notable Book by Poetry International. Revenance was listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets. Hogue’s honors include two NEA Fellowships and the H.D. Fellowship at Yale. She lives in Tucson, AZ.

Book preview

In June the Labyrinth

Copyright © 2017 by Cynthia Hogue

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

Book layout by Sarah Wong

Hand lettering by Cassidy Trier

Names: Hogue, Cynthia, author.

Title: In June the labyrinth / Cynthia Hogue.

Description: Pasadena, CA : Red Hen Press, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016048404 | ISBN 9781597090377 (pbk. : alk. paper) | eISBN 9781597095785

Classification: LCC PS3558.O34754 A6 2017 | DDC 811/.54—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048404

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Sherwood Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition

Published by Red Hen Press

www.redhen.org

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the editors of the following journals, anthologies, and special issues for publishing individual poems (sometimes with different titles and in earlier versions): Bosque: (a journey), (believing belief), ("still her), (the field"); Hinchas de Poesia: (I could still call Elle), (the green way), ("thinking of you") ; Hotel Amerika: (the labyrinth of honestly) under the title the lake of honestly; Plume: (the wayfarer), (to label something something) in a composite poem including ("a