Ten years ago, Maria Zoccola 15C stood inside a small stone Orthodox church on the outskirts of Bratislava, Slovakia, listening to the shuffling feet of worshippers and the high-pitched ring of power tools from outside. While construction workers wielded their instruments, blanketed the glass windows with white sheets and spewed grey dust into the air, devotees continued their practice. Unbothered by the whirl of machinery or the threat of falling debris, worshippers lit candles and prayed.
Zoccola, a Memphis, Tenn. While Zoccola loved reading poetry throughout her adolescence, her primary passion was fiction writing. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. During her undergraduate years at Emory, Zoccola studied abroad in New Zealand and traveled to Slovakia, where she found the small stone church.
When Zoccola first arrived in Savannah, Ga. It inspired her to dive into a new, intimidating medium: poetry. If they can do this, if they can be brave enough to go ahead and do poetry, what am I so afraid of? From that point forward, Zoccola dove head-first into poetry writing, approaching it with a new appreciation and ambition.
For a year, she ignored Helen. All at once, she could not escape the nagging voice of the Spartan Queen. But as previously mentioned, this Helen was not wearing a peplos and dining with the gods. This Helen was standing in Chuck E. Cheese and having absurd pregnancy cravings.
It was this kind of creative wave that passed over me, and I just kept writing into it until the poems were done. It is precisely these qualities that attract readers and critics alike. Throughout the publishing process, Zoccola said she often wanted to share the poems with Brodak but habitually remembered that her mentor had passed.
