As we draw close to All Hallow's Eve, when the gates between the realms of the living, the dead, and the spirit world stand ajar, our Sunday Poem explores one of the great archetypal myths of descent into the Underworld: Hades' abduction of Persephone. The poem is "A Myth of Devotion" by Louise Gluck, an absolutely stunning piece that looks at this old, old story from the Lord of Hell's point of view.
Gluck was born in New York City, received degrees from Sarah Lawrence and Columbia, and is now writer-in-residence at Yale University. Her books include Wild Iris (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award), Ararat (winner of the Library of Congress's National Prize for Poetry), The Triumph of Achilles (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Boston Globe Literary Press Award, and the Poetry Society of America Award), Vita Nova (winner of the Boston Book Review's Poetry Prize and the New Yorker's Book Award), and Averno (a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award). More information about the author can be found on the Modern American Poetry website.
The great English artist Jacqueline Morreau has explored the Hades and Persephone myth in a number of her paintings and drawings, including the images here. To see more of her work, visit the "Myth and Metaphor" exhibition in the Endicott gallery, and the Jacqueline Morreau website. For an in-depth look at themes of death and rebirth in the Persephone story, see Kathie Carlson's "The Wheat that Springeth Green" in the Journal of Mythic Arts.
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