Vincent Poetry Prize Editor’s Choice
Luisa A. Gloria
Underworld
"...My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
~ “Prayer to Persephone,” Edna St. Vincent Millay
First, let me tell you: the name
I am called by others is not
the name I call myself
in the future. Let me tell you
that the smell of bitter green
remains on my hands even after
I've pulled up the vine and
the root. Who hasn't wanted
to inhabit a tiny room
in the soil cushioned by darkness,
soft and without hurt? For a long
while I had no name for the thing
that cleaved me from this pock-
marked plot in the same way
I pulled daughters
out of the wilderness
of my longing. When I look
out into the distance, rain
or snow prepares the field
for the agonies of repetition.
I lie awake, counting
with my tongue the hard
seeds I once held there, believing
they would be a way to return.
Julia Bouwsma’s Comment:
“Underworld” begins with an epigraph from Millay’s “Prayer to Persephone.” In Millay’s poem, the speaker calls upon Persephone to comfort a dead beloved and reassure her that “it is not so dreadful here,” unexpectedly depicting Persephone as a potentially maternal figure. By contrast, “Underworld,” a persona poem set in the voice of Persephone, subverts Millay’s own mythological subversion. This Persephone openly rejects Millay’s call, stating flatly that “the name / I am called by others is not / the name I call myself,” and rather than offer pat reassurance, she rejects any notion that death might be “dreadful.” Instead, she prefers the land of the dead where she is “cushioned by darkness, / soft and without hurt” to the land of the living with its lingering “smell of bitter green.” I love this poem’s witty engagement with Millay’s poem, its stark and haunting language (somewhat reminiscent of a Lousie Glück poem), and its clear and powerfully rendered voice.
