Hold Your Own

From playwright, novelist, spoken-word star, and the youngest-ever winner of the Ted Hughes Award, an electrifying poem-sequence based on the myth of the gender-switching prophet Tiresias.

My heart throws its head against my ribs, / it's denting every bone it's venting something it has known since I arrived and felt it beat.

Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes--and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. So begins Hold Your Own, a...