Tales of the Francois Vase

Poetry. Book + CD. Julia Older's obsession with the famous Fran癟ois Vase led to both the radio play and the book-length poem. The dramatic 25-century journey of the vase winds through a subterranean inferno of greed, passion, and terror. Twice it was smashed into 600-plus pieces, came unglued, and was puzzled together, each time with a piece missing. A third time��uring the 1966 Florence Flood�� scientist intentionally broke the vase. He restored it with the missing piece, and at last it was whole. Older's book offers readers the entire fascinating story. The poem is illustrated with the vase figures from The Iliad and the book includes a "backstory" with Older's original translations of her research.

The CD included with this book is a 33-minute radio drama introduced by a 10-minute director-author interview. The production was chosen by Radio Works' Best Independent Programs for syndication and broadcast to more than sixty public radio stations coast to coast.

"Before printed books there were talking vases. Julia Older found one Greek vase that talked and is still talking, in defiance of weather, war, and malevolence. Julia Older renders the voices that attended the Fran癟ois Vase from its birth in the potter's hands to what its admirers and enemies said when they held, lost, hunted, or broke it. All these voices speak in rhythms the poet fancied or channeled, and they tell a picaresque and musical drama of that Western mind that flows from ancient Greece to X-rays. Once a talking vase, it's now Julia's singing vase. You can sing along."��ndrei Codrescu