And there I had my analogy. Rarely has history seen a system which fostered such a sense of futility as slavery. For the Africans taken forcibly from their homes and their roots—language, family, tribal memory—systematically decimated, the white power structure must have seemed as all-encompassing as the implacable will of Zeus. In a flash, I had the basic constructs: A child born of a white plantation mistress and her African lover is sold off but returns twenty years later, unaware of his origins. The open secret of miscegenation would be the key that turns the lock of Fate, and instead of Tiresius, a conjure woman would prophesy the curse. Pride and rebellious spirit have little chance in the systemic violence of slavery, which brutalizes both slave and master: In a different world, Amalia might have been a woman of independent means and Augustus a poet; instead, both are doomed to be crushed when their emotions run counter to the ruling status quo. The slaves know this and function as a Greek chorus, commenting and warning, all to no avail.

Robert McDowell:

This was in 1979—but the play wouldn’t see the light of day until 1994. What happened?

Rita Dove:

I wrote the first draft in less than a month, but it would take a dozen or so years before I arrived at a version that I felt was ready to be shown to the world. I dutifully sent a few copies of that first draft to New York agents, knowing that it was everything a play shouldn’t be to succeed in the commercial theater world: a historical drama, an adaptation of a Classic with too many non-mainstream characters. When the copies came back (some accompanied by encouraging but no-thanks notes), I put them in a drawer and went on with my life in poetry. Every few years my husband would drag out the manuscript and ask, “What are you planning to do with this?” I’d look at it, try to take out a few characters, maybe shuffle them around a bit, and put it away again. The next time I’d rewrite it as prose, then stuff it back in the drawer. Finally in 1989, I said, “What the hell,” and restored it to verse. Who cared if it never got published? At least when I was dead and gone, the version scholars would find among my papers would be the one I wanted them to see.