Praise for Helen of Troy is High AF:

Helen of Troy is High AF is feminist AF! Sonia Greenfield’s irreverent persona poems in the voices of the women of The Odyssey take a merciless look at the misogyny that informs the epic—and our contemporary culture as well: “wouldn’t / you want to rip into, with claws honed / vicious, the casual cruelty of these men?” These precise, lyrically deft poems range from witty to heartbreaking, full of clear-eyed speakers at last unafraid to tell the truth about themselves. After reading, you’ll run back to Homer with a red pen in hand.

—Nicky Beer, author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes 

Sonia Greenfield pens savvy, contemporary takes on iconic female characters from The Odyssey in her lively new chapbook Helen of Troy is High AF. Drawing epigraphic inspiration from Emily Wilson’s equally marvelous translation of Homer’s epic, Greenfield not only writes with concision, humor, and searing insight into a bevy of often maligned, dis-empowered women figures, but her imagined voicing of their reclaimed viewpoints bolsters agency and reflects this poet’s wit, word craft, and serious feminist eye. These poems boldly embody persona away from the male-centric view, and delight as they illuminate, like Penelope, who in Greenfield’s narrative grasp suggests we: “Imagine him keeping chaste/a decade while his whole home hums/ with lust as loud as a clover field of bees.”

—Michelle Bitting, author of Nightmares & Miracles

Told from the perspective of the often silenced and ignored women of The Odyssey, Sonia Greenfield’s Helen of Troy is High AF gives voice to their lives and losses with lyric precision. Through her skill and wit, Greenfield pulls these women from the pages of myth into the real world where they question, challenge, and rage. These poems thrum with heartbeat and song, with trials and triumphs. 

—Vandana Khanna, author of Afternoon Masala