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| Persephone and her New Skin Photo courtesy of Alyssa Froehling |
Much like Alli’s fascination with Hamlet’s Ophelia, I’ve found myself drawn to another troubled female character over and over, this one coming at you from a Greek myth.
Persephone. Who is she? To be brief, she’s the queen of hell.
She didn’t exactly apply or volunteer for the position, though. Hades sort of…abducted her. And then he and her mother, Demeter, worked out a compromise so that she would be back on Earth for half of the year. When Persephone rises from the Underworld, she brings all the vegetation back to life. Her presence brings the spring. When she is gone, everything withers and dies. Her absence is the cause of winter.
The Art
In my photography class this past term of college, I knew I wanted to do some sort of portraiture, but I also wanted to explore a character. My roommate and the model pictured below, Sara Baugh, had a lot of fun conceptualizing Persephone’s persona and putting together a costume we thought would reflect a contemporary Persephone. These are two of the ten portraits I took for my project. These photographs use long-exposure-ghosting-techniques (photography buffs, correct me on my terminology) to create the ethereal effect.
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Persephone, Looking at Cerberus
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Persephone, Kidnapped
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The Poetry
Persephone is having sex in hell.
Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t know
what winter is, only that
she is what causes it.
She is lying in the bed of Hades.
What is in her mind?
Is she afraid? Has something
blotted out the idea
of mind?
She does know the earth
is run by mothers, this much
is certain. She also knows
she is not what is called
a girl any longer. Regarding
incarceration, she believes
she has been a prisoner since she has been a daughter.
-Louise Gluck, excerpt from “Persephone the Wanderer”
The Prompts
2. Write a poem in which you respond to Gluck’s “Persephone the Wanderer.” Answer the questions Gluck posed in her poem, or write a poem about how you imagine Persephone spends her half-year in hell. Is their any possibility that she is in love? Is she lonely? Is she authoritative in her place as queen, or timid?
3. Free write while looking at the above photographs. Eerie green light fading to white. Twisting flowers and splashes of red. Does she look frightened? Or maybe just inquisitive? Is she in pain? Is she indignant or resigned to her fate? Does she feel a chill right before she is taken below ground? Smell iron, taste blood?
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| Read more of Alyssa's work on Floodmark. |
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