Poems For Company, January 23 2023

"Dogs in Homer, Homer's Dog, Other Dogs."  What truths about dogs did Homer know nearly 3000 years ago?  If Homer lived with a dog, what did this dog think of the epic poet?  The poems in this episode address these and other canine-related questions in intriguing ways.  Homer, snippets from The Iliad, Books 22 and 23; a passage from The Odyssey, Book 17.  Lisel Mueller, "What the Dog Perhaps Hears," from Alive Together: New and Selected Poems, Louisiana State University Press (1996).  Kevin Young, "Bereavement," from The Book of Hours, Knopf (2014).  Michael Collier, "Argos," from The Ledge, Houghton Mifflin (2000).  William Matthews, "Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog," from Search Party: Collected Poems, ed. by Sebastian Matthews and Stanley Plumly, Houghton Mifflin (2004), read with permission of William Matthews estate.