book: Children of Morpheus, a Collection of Poetry and Short Fiction
author: Danielle Ackley McPhail
illustrator: Ruth Lampi
publisher: Lite Circle Books
cost: $4.95
available at: www.litecircle.com
Keeping in form with her debut novel, Yesterday's Dreams, Danielle Ackley
McPhail has released a collection of poetry and short stories that show off
her knowledge of different types of mythology.
Stories such as Enchainedment, Green with Envy and Desert Dancer, and poems
Odd Jason Out, Luna dote on Greek and Roman mythologies whereas other pieces
touch upon what her debut novel is greatly influenced by: Celtic mythology.
The prime example of this in this collection of work is the story, Birth of
Tuatha de Danaan, Even though it wasn't derived from any particular Celtic
myth, it best illustrates what had influenced this particular piece and her
earlier novel. She utilized what she knew of the Sidhe (which she's told a
reporter recently occurred after the timeframe that Birth of Tuatha de
Danaan took place) and drafted this moving tale that not only depicts a
people with mythical powers but also something we can all relate to: the
power of family ties.
This is most evident, in this particular story, when Anu urges her twin to
go on without her.
"I'll na be lost to ye forever, then. Now away with ye! I canna last much
longer an' I've one more task to see to."
Yet, Danu couldn't seem to break herself away from her dying twin. "She
wanted to cry out and deny the truth," McPhail wrote of Danu, while Anu,
despite her physical anguish continued to ground Danu. She did so by saying,
"Sorrow has blinded ye; 'tis only for now ye'll stand alone, an' ye survive
the hunt. 'Tis yerself that'll see the Daoine Maite rise again from the very
depth o' ye."
With several other items in this collection of short fiction and poetry,
McPhail also rose up from the depths of her own pain and anguish by
including other work that deals with death and destruction. There's the
poem, Mother, which addresses her mother's battle with cancer and the poems
Rex and Unlikely Comfort, both of which focuses on the death of her beloved
cat, Rex.
Others are fictional tales of a young girl who doesn't quite understand the
meaning of death in A Portrait of Black Velvet, and then there's Haunted by
a Memory, where readers meet Frank, a detective coming to terms with his own
death.
"Children of Morpheus is a sampling of my work that shows the diversity of
what I'm capable of," she recently told an interviewer (Hammonton News).
"The variety of topics that are addressed are from my mother's cancer to
working in Manhattan on Sept. 11. There's something that speaks to
everyone."
That, it certainly does.