Metamorphoses Book

A collection of poems based on Ovid's Metamorphoses. Some are fairly dutiful translations, some are loose interpretations. Unfortunately they vary a lot in quality. The high point for me was "Mrs. Midas," by Carol Ann Duffy, the current British poet laureate. (According to Wikipedia she is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the position.) "Mrs. Midas" has virtually nothing to do with Ovid's telling of the story--but it is perfectly Ovidian in tone and wit.
"He was standing under the pear tree snapping a twig.
Now the garden was long and the visibility poor, the way
the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky,
but the twig in his hand was gold. And then he plucked
a pear from a branch, we grew Fondante d'Automne,
and it sat in his hand like a lightbulb. On.
I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy-lights in the tree?
He came into the house. The doorknob glowed...
I made him sit
on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself.
I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone.
The toilet I didn't mind. I couldn't believe my ears:
how he'd had a wish. Look, we all have wishes; granted.
But who has wishes granted? Him. Do you know about gold?
It feeds no-one; aurum, soft, untarnishable; slakes
no thirst. He tried to light a cigarette...At least,
I said, you'll be able to give up smoking for good."

Ovid would have loved it.