Book Review – ‘Medusa’s Daughter’ by Jane Rosenberg LaForge, reviewed by Kristen Coates

“It’s on the coast that all monsters/
have children”

In Jane Rosenberg LaForge’s Medusa’s Daughter the Greek myth of Medusa, the snake-haired Gorgon whose gaze turns onlookers to stone, is reinterpreted to reveal a Medusa who is a mother, a wife, and a sister living in modern times. The finely wrought narrative verse is from the perspective of one of Medusa’s daughters, and the mother-daughter dynamic underpinning the collection lends this retelling so much depth and emotional resonance as well as providing a feminist lens.

Medusa’s daughter describes the original Greek mythology as “the original horror, the first interpretation” and the narrative uses vivid imagery and rich metaphor to depict her mother as a mortal monster. Instead of snakes, her mother’s hair is made of voices, its texture more wolf than reptile. She suffers from cancer and diabetes and “blue manias, mean reds.” 

This Greek mythology is intertwined with Medusa’s Jewish heritage at times, as when Medusa says a dish of stuffed cabbage isn’t “Jewish enough” and the daughter understands this to mean “another one/ of [Medusa’s] civilizations dashed to the ash can of history, as my/ own peel like the leaves/ of a bulb dormant in the earth.” This is powerful, compelling poetry.

The narrator struggles with the push/pull dynamic of recoiling from her mother’s differences and recognizing that she is her mother’s daughter. Medusa wears “jungle red” lipstick, an old-fashioned color that is very loud and distinct from the lipstick shades other mothers wear, an emblem of “the artificial, / in place of a real mother,” signaling a lack of emotional intimacy. Yet, “but then again/ in your genes, passed on to your/ girl children”— she has inherited her mother’s traits.

Medusa’s daughter reinterprets the rape of Medusa by the Greek god Poseidon in Athena’s temple in several poems, including “Medusa’s Crime and Punishment,” where Medusa’s daughter sees her mother as “a believer in her convictions, in her own clear way/ of thinking” and Medusa was punished “not for what she failed/ to stop before the idols from seeing in the temple, / and not because she is a victim.”  This is an incredible poetry collection.

Medusa’s Daughter is available for pre-order now from Animal Heart Press.

Kristen Coates is a writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado who loves and supports independent literature and publishing. She tweets @systemosystems.

Issue Four is LIVE!

And oh, wildlings, it’s an absolute firecracker! Read it here!

And now for our big surprise – we’re opening submissions to Issue Five EARLY! And even better – it’s UNTHEMED! There was so much to explore in Issue Four with poetry features and art features and ekphrasis works – you really got us thinking. And now we want MORE.

Check out the revised submission guidelines and start planning – subs open October 7th!

Poetry submissions to Issue 3 are closing EARLY!

HURRY! Poets, we’re closing submissions for this issue a week early! If you have work on the theme of BODY, you’ll need to get it to us by July 13th.

Artists – we’re still open for your submissions! Think outside the box, consider BODY in any and every possible context, and send us your ponderings made art. (Our Art Ed, Amanda, is currently obsessed with artist features. Just sayin’.)

Submissions to Issue 3 of FERAL are now OPEN!

Theme: BODY

Photo by John Jackson on Unsplash


Feel free to interpret this theme broadly. Beyond the human body, there are 8 million living species
(give or take a million) on Earth today. There are also bodies of land, bodies of water, celestial bodies,
body politic. Here are a few other things on our mind as we think of BODY.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER #PRIDE #BELIEVESURVIVORS #COVID19 #PANDEMIC

Please read our general submission guidelines and send us your best! Submissions open through July
20 th .