Mythic Space and Joanne Kyger’s Poetics of Integration

Mary Paniccia Carden’s essay examines Kyger’s early work and her interest in the mythic in The Tapestry and the Web, with Kyger writing under the “Homer Dome.” However, Carden highlights figures other than Penelope, the female persona with whom Kyger has been most often associated. Exploring Kyger’s use of Demeter, Persephone, and Pan, as well as weavers such as Ariadne, Carden emphasizes her transformations of duality through integration of oppositions. Kyger’s focus on mythic figures stands in for her own way to transformation through her early work on into later life when myths outside the Western classical tradition become central to her practice.