Later History of the Alphabeticals

By | 15 May 2023
Herodes’ son couldn’t learn his alphabet

so the easiest thing was to buy

twenty-four boys his age and rename

each one after a letter. Their story

ends there, as children bought to form

an alphabet chart. Maybe some saved money,

bought their freedom. Zeta became

a wealthy freedman in the imperial bureaucracy.

Or they held reunions, called themselves

the Alphabeticals, lost touch with some

(no trace of Upsilon for years) then aged

and died off: Epsilon too young,

and finally only Mu to remember.
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Graeme Miles has published three collections of poems: Infernal Topographies (UWA Press, 2020) Recurrence (John Leonard Press, 2012) and Phosphorescence (Fremantle Press, 2006). After completing a PhD in classics at the University of Western Australia, he spent six months as an Asialink writer in residence at the University of Madras, then a year in Belgium as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Ghent. He has lived in Hobart since 2008 and teaches ancient Greek language and literature at the University of Tasmania.

More by Graeme Miles on Cordite Poetry Review →

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