Wild Women Who Write welcome guest host Jessica Tilley Hodgman as we interview our first poet, Raegen Pietrucha, author of Head of a Gorgon. Pietrucha's work focuses on Medusa through a modern lens. Beautiful woman turned into a deadly monster, Medusa embodies the struggle women face in a world where beauty is a power men fear and desire. For those of you who need a refresher in Greek mythology, after Poseidon raped Medusa on Athena's altar, he dumped her. Instead of going after the sea god, Athena unleashed her fury on Medusa, turning her hair into writhing snakes and cursing her so that anyone who looked into her eyes turned to stone. After that, the doomed woman/monster spends her days lonely and in hiding until Perseus, one of Zeus's many children, decapitates her while she sleeps.
Our discussion focuses on how this legend relates to modern women in light of the Me, Too Movement and ongoing unanswered violence against women.