This book offers thirty-eight free-verse poems which introduce or reacquaint the reader to the timeless characters in Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. And, in all but two poems, the characters speak in our time--sometimes in self-reflection, sometimes to other characters, but always to the reader. Though Ancient Greek culture was far different from ours, the poems help the reader to see the way that people react to life"s raptures and sorrows never changes.