The Engendering Flood (Dust Shall Be the Serpent's Food)

Author s Note: The Engendering Flood is the first book in an autobiographical epic poem entitled Dust Shall Be the Serpent s Food. It consists of four cantos, the first being called 'In Media Res,' so named after the classic formula for the epic as it has come down to us from the Latin and Greek tradition. The words mean simply 'in the midst of things,' but more aptly have come to specify 'the low point in the fortunes of the hero.' For me that point was certainly the funeral of my father at the close of World War II in 1945, and so I have begun it. The epic formula then calls for flashback to delineate how the hero got to that point. Thus Canto II, entitled 'Skald,' after the Scandinavian minstrels or bards of the Viking period, relates the life of my father, an immigrant Norwegian musician. Canto III, 'Hidden Life,' narrates the humble origin of my mother on a Minnesota farm in the last century, how she met my father and how they fell in love. Canto IV, 'The Hollow Years,' tells of the estrangement of the lovers, their eventual reconciliation, marriage, procreation, and arrival in Selma, California, where I grew up. Thus far, my immediate lineal background. Book two will begin my personal odyssey.W.E.