Ajar to the Night by Autumn Richardson, a work of three linked poems, is concerned with metempsychosis – the transmigration of the soul (psyche) from one physical body (soma) to another following death. Its western origins can be traced to Orphism, where the eternal cycle of metempsychosis can only be broken by initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries. Orpheus himself was celebrated by the Greeks as the greatest magician, musician and poet who ever lived, so it is entirely appropriate that the topic […]