Poet Extends Myth of Goddess of the Hunt Into the Present Day

After five years of work, Eloise Klein Healy has finished her latest book of poetry, “Artemis In Echo Park,” which brings the mythology of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, wild animals and hunting, into modern life.

Despite having finally completed such a lengthy effort, Healy is uncomfortable. She isn’t writing much right now, while waiting to see if a publisher will accept her manuscript.

“This is the worst time,” the 45-year-old Sherman Oaks poet said. “I hate this time because I feel totally worthless. I feel invisible.

“The only thing that sustains me is I go out and give readings and people like the poems.”

Yet the poet hardly appeared miserable. Instead, she seemed friendly and animated.

Sunday, Healy will read from her Artemis poems as part of the Valley Contemporary Poets Series at Glendale Federal Savings and Loan in Canoga Park. The program, which begins with an open reading at 6:30 p.m., includes poet Lydia Velez of Chino Hills.

“Artemis In Echo Park” is Healy’s fourth book of poetry--”Building Some Changes,” “A Packet Beating Like A Heart” and “Ordinary Wisdom” have been published. Healy teaches creative writing, literature and women studies at Cal State Northridge. She gives numerous readings.

Her public performances are low-key and conversational, mixing serious poems with lighter fare. Well-known Los Angeles poet Wanda Coleman, who hosts “Poetry Connexion” on radio station KPFK, said Healy has “a strong, memorable and distinct voice. I think her work has grown, she has really gone through a transformation. She’s also one of the few poets everyone likes personally.”

Born in Texas, raised in Iowa and North Hollywood, Healy began writing in high school. Last year she completed a master’s degree in writing from Vermont College (“so now I’m a certified writer,” she said, with a note of irony. “I know how to do it.”). But she has not been granted tenure at CSUN.

“Sometimes I think very seriously about doing something else,” but “what would it be?” she said.

“Hotdog stand for the stars,” she joked, deadpan. “Federal Express.”

She has taught at the university since 1980 and now is an English instructor, an assistant professor in the School of Humanities and coordinator of the women studies interdisciplinary program. She is on the board of directors of the downtown Los Angeles Woman’s Building, and teaches a writing workshop.

The Artemis poems explore “female self-possession” through the figure of Artemis.

“One of my problems in writing ‘Artemis in Echo Park’ is that Artemis is the patron goddess of the Amazons, and she is a hunter,” Healy said. “It was hard for me to get myself into the mind-set of a warrior. I’m more a worrier than a warrior.”

Healy tried to write in the voice of “a regular person who sees the world” as Artemis might. To be such a person “means having a different relationship to animal life, to wild things” than most people do, she said.

The poems are full of animals--coyote, dogs, peacocks, bears. And they’re frequently frank about her love for other women.

“And, quite unintentionally, a lot about homelessness became part of the book, because there’s quite a lot of it here,” she said.

Healy sees homeless people as almost “a new species, living not quite like people and not quite like animals.” The poems are set in Echo Park because the poet lived there and in Silver Lake for 14 years before moving to Sherman Oaks in December.

She recently judged a West Coast poetry contest for PEN, the international writers organization, and she is guest-editing an issue of Poetry Miscellany, a magazine published by the University of Tennessee.