Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola
Scribner, 2025.
96 pages. $18.
 
Reviewed by Natalie Solmer

All through reading Maria Zoccola’s debut book of poetry, Helen of Troy, 1993, I heard, as undercurrent, the lines from H.D.’s famous poem, “Helen,” “All Greece hates / the still eyes in the white face, / the lustre as of olives / where she stands / and the white hands.”

I imagine that I am not alone in being distracted by other versions of the story of Helen gleaned from movies, books, and art while reading this book; H.D. just happens to be one of my favorite poets whose lines live in my head. At times this was disorienting, as Zoccola’s version of Helen does not inhabit much resemblance to any Helen we have known.

However, that’s the point. The historical Helen is simply hated, never given a voice (she’s only offered six lines in The Iliad), and is distractingly beautiful, a skin-deep character. Zoccola gives voice to Helen, exploring her inner life and domesticity, and reimagines her by employing a mastery of language, which is what links this work to Greek myth most of all. The way Zoccola plays with form and engages with foundational texts such as Robert Fagle’s translation of The Iliad are what make the book electric.

Here’s where I remind you (those of you that need reminding) that Helen, dubbed the most beautiful woman in Greek Mythology, was married to Menelaus, king of Sparta, and was either abducted or went willingly with Paris, Prince of Troy, prompting the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. Her husband, Menelaus, ultimately conquered Troy and brought Helen back to Sparta. In the myth, he was close to killing her for her betrayal, but he put down his sword, enchanted by her beauty.

The enticement of Zoccola’s Helen lies in the tension created by the juxtaposition of the Greek myth with her version of Helen as 90’s housewife in rural Tennessee. Beyond Helen-the-housewife’s affair, strained relationship with her husband “the big cheese,” and distant relationship with her daughter, their biographies don’t intersect. Even Helen’s great beauty is not at all emphasized, excepting the poem, “helen of troy is asked to the spring formal,” wherein this Helen is bombarded with suitors, but we are shown a more empowered and decisive Helen through her telling of this part of her biography. You won’t find much of “the face that launched a thousand ships,” the famous line from Christopher Marlowe’s 1604 play, Doctor Faustus, in this retelling of the myth.

Zoccola steers clear of the superficial realm in favor of rich, funny, and inventive language evident in every line which immerses us in Helen’s interior. One example in the poem, “helen of troy explains to the gods” I particularly loved was Zoccola’s description of the “booze-dark sea,” a nod to what we usually see in translations of the Greek epics as the “wine-dark sea.” The book also contains a loose narrative arc surrounding “the affair” which propels the reader through the book, though I feel that any questions we have around it are never really answered, and I’m sure that was deliberate. We never find out much of anything about the man she leaves her husband for; we only see the interior feelings and confusion within her. In the poem mentioned above, Zoccola’s Helen is conversing with the gods, mentioning the “oracle,” another nod, and is asking, “who // am i? I am asking / for the sake of research.” This question is center of the book around which it rotates, a question which has not been given enough consideration historically, at least not in Helen’s own voice.

I also singled out “helen of troy reigns over chuck e. cheese” as a foundational poem in the book. This delightful long poem is a feast of deft sound-work and imagery culled from the time and place in which the book is set, full of the pizza grease of American fast food and children screaming at the animatronic dancing rats. This piece is a climax to the narrative in which Helen, awkward and defiant, integrates back into the community and connects with her daughter across the swaths of judgy church ladies. We don’t see what happens with Helen and her husband; the focus is on mother and daughter, which is what is really important to this character:

“i suddenly need my daughter like i need my own skin, like seeing
her scowling face is going to be the only thing that keeps all my
wobbly insides from spilling across the sprite-sticky linoleum
like the bottom ripping out of a garbage bag, and i think i last
about ninety seconds quivering at the center of the holy maelstrom
of gleeful gossip before turning tail to hunt her down, this girl
who might or might not hate every cell in my she-viper body”

The rural/suburban landscape of 1990’s Tennessee is as much a character in the book as Helen herself. Zoccola, who was a child in the 90’s and grew up in Memphis, explains she chose this setting or rather it chose her. Seeing as how hot the 90’s are right now (have you seen the clothes in the stores? Did you notice Kenrick’s jeans at the Super Bowl?), this seems like an added bonus to the book–its mention of neon bright nails, Madonna, The Smurfs, and Jurassic Park. I was a teen in the 90’s, so the 90’s media craze just adds another blow to the surreality of aging in my case, but the book’s nostalgic atmosphere is easily recognizable.

In Helen of Troy, 1993, Zoccola has boldly and inventively entered the thousands years long conversation in art around the Helen myth. I appreciate the Afterword in which Zoccola included her history with Greek myth (she began reading them very early and was hooked; she also had an extensive education “a whole class of fourteen-year-old girls punching through both the Iliad and Odyssey in about six weeks”). She explains how she finally heeded a call to write poems in Helen’s voice in a “manic daze” late in the pandemic.

H.D. was a poet who, like Maria Zoccola, was obsessed with the Greeks and their myths, in particular the story of Helen. Later in her career, H.D. even wrote the book, Helen in Egypt, which explores an alternate legend that Helen never really went to Troy but instead went to Egypt while her ghost-clone inhabited Troy. Zoccola dips into this alternate myth as well in the poem, “and another thing about the affair,” wherein she reimagines Helen-the-housewife as hypnotized by the lover, leaving her husband to become, “ghost-helen, helen made of mist” before eventually returning back to her husband and daughter.

This is one version, one answer we get for who Helen was. Though I don’t think Helen’s question of “who am i?” is ever answered, it’s for this reason that the reader can relate. It’s a question most of us struggle with day in and day out, changing over time.

Zoccola’s book also contains a crown of sonnets spoken in the voice of the “spartan women” woven through the text. One particular delight is the poem, “the spartan women discuss tennessee” wherein the women give homage to the book’s setting with lyrics praising Tennessee’s caves, “ten thousand empty places yawn open / beneath our turf, more bubbles of dead air / than any other state.” I’m a sucker for specificity of place.

The crown of sonnets completes itself with, “the spartan women discuss helen of troy” wherein they assert that, “when you’re dead we’ll cherish you again,” which did call back the end of that H.D. poem forever circling in my head, “Greece . . . could love indeed the maid, / only if she were laid, / white ash amid funereal cypresses.” Zoccola’s Spartan women sing their last words to Helen, words which are earned by what we’re given in this generous book, “we’ll remember how you launched yourself: / beautiful and suffering. mortal as a wound.”

Natalie Solmer was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, a granddaughter of Polish and German immigrants. She worked in the field of horticulture for many years, including 13 years as a grocery store florist, before becoming a professor of English and creative writing. She teaches at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis and is the founder and editor in chief of The Indianapolis Review. Her work has been published in journals such as North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Pleiades, Mom Egg Review, and Tab Poetry Journal. Her debut book of poems, Water Castle, was published by Kelsay Books in the fall of 2024. You can find her poems, visual poetry, and visual art at http://www.nataliesolmer.com

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