Carson begins Autobiography of Red by introducing the lyric poet, Stesichoros, born "about 650 B.C." (3) near Sicily, Italy. He wrote over twenty-six books during his lifetime, but only a dozen plus "several collections of fragments" (3) survive. Carson claims that not much is known about Stesichoros, aside from him being a "popular success" (3), and the rumor that Helen of Troy struck him blind after he wrote a poem depicting her in a negative light. Stesichoros worked extensively with adjectives, "studying the surface restlessly" (5) to create an expansive, "unlatched" (5) world for his audience.

This includes Stesichoros's "long lyric poem" (5) about Geryon, a "strange winged red monster" (5) who tends "magical red cattle" (5) on the island of Erytheia until Herakles kills him and steals the cattle. Rather than tell the story from Herakles, the hero's, perspective, Stesichoros tells it from "Geryon's own experience" (6). The lyric poem, called “Geryoneis,” or "The Geryon Matter" (5), has been assembled from a group of fragments, of which no passages longer than "thirty lines" (6) survive. For this reason, of the thirteen editions of the “Geryoneis” published since 1882, no two editions are "exactly the same as any other" (6), either in content or ordering.