Aidan Dun - About Universal (08 Jan 2009)

There was a traveller who somehow explored most of the holy lands and pilgrimage-places of the world. From this remarkable journey came an answer to the ancient riddle of God's gender.

The epic poem Universal whirlwinds the reader through North Africa, the West Indies, India. A travelogue, it detours into biographies. We meet the dreadlocked Ombilas, man of knowledge. We cross the world and find a young Cuban goddess who dances herself to a mythological death. We descend into Morocco. We find ourselves in the rough street-life of London.

Here is a sweeping ride through transculture. But at its deepest levels Universal addresses sacred gender. Could the creator be masculine, the creation feminine, as many ancient cultures supposed? Is sacred sexuality a way of putting such an understanding into practice? Universal takes these issues in its long stride, sneaking across the borders of what is possible in poetry today