Triptych

by Susan Budd

“Triptych” is a journey through the liminal realm between dreaming and waking, madness and reality, myth and memory. Like a three-paneled painting, the central poem is flanked by two smaller poems. "Nightmares and Bugbears" is a labyrinth of dreamscapes, a nightmare world of fragmented consciousness through which Phoebe must navigate. "Epistles to Hope" chronicles her descent into madness, into an abyss of anxiety, panic, and chaos, and her struggle toward clarity and light. “Mythopoesis” is an essay-poem that explores the psychology of myth-making. Together the three poems reveal how the mind transforms memory into myth and myth into art.

146 pages, Paperback

Published September 8, 2016

About the author

Metaphysical questions about consciousness and dreams have always fascinated me. From childhood, I loved reading fantasies, myths, and fairy tales. I loved reverie and introspection. Later I studied philosophy of mind and the spiritual mysticism of East and West. I explored visionary literature and art. I scrutinized my own mind. Now I’m a professor of philosophy and literature at the City University of New York.

My first book was Visions, a montage of psychedelic dream poems. Visions was born of my fascination with the mind and its modes of perception. It was also strongly influenced by my love of art and music. My novella, Felicity, is a dreamlike philosophical fable about the nature of reality and the meaning of life.