Ephemeron

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE**

The poems in Ephemeron deal with the short-lived and transitory - whether it''s the brief, urgent lives of the first section, ''Insect Love Songs'', the abrupt, anguished, physical and emotional changes during secondary school, as remembered in ''Boarding-School Tales'', or parenting''s day-by-day shifts through love and fear, hurt and healing, in ''Daughter Mother''.

The long central section, ''Translations from the Pasipha¿, gathers these themes together in a blistering, unforgettable re-telling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, as seen from the point of view of the bull-child''s mother - the betrayed and violated Pasipha¿The familiar legend of the dashing male hero slaying the monster in the labyrinth is transformed here into a story of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary cycle of violence, power and the abuse of power. At the centre lies Pasipha¿allin