Week 2 Poem of the Week: “Persephone: The Girl Who Put The Fatal In Femme Fatale” by Sophie Overton

Persephone: The Girl Who Put The Fatal In Femme Fatale

I will put the fatal in femme fatale.

This is the one pleasant thought that swims around in my brain as I numbly spend my afternoon like I ordinarily do- Butchering bumblebees, beheading buds, bashing flowerbeds, and breaking branches. Homer and Ovid will later tell you with their pretty little lies that I was stolen from amongst these scenic sycamores by the God of Death because I epitomized the touch of life he lacked. Homer will later write that I screamed as I tumbled down into the depths of Hades’ realm of stygian and spirits. It’s amusing to me really.

How desperate some men are to suppress dangerous women that they are met with no other choice but to reinvent her entirely. It makes me smile. If only they could see me right now clothed in nettles and narcissus as I sharpen a discarded stick I’ve found in my mother’s meadow.

There is no one watching me here except the fern trees, and so I decide to make a pretty scythe decorated with stems.

I work and work until the stick, no, scythe is sharp enough to slice through souls, but more significantly, a God’s skin.

Today is the day, I decide as the sun sizzles my skin, too hot, too bright for me. Today is the day that I will rebel against my mother, the goddess of agriculture and her suffocation and our suppressive slow, monotonous stretched-out days stuck in strawberry fields and amongst succulents.

I smear strips of pollen onto my cheeks like warpaint and clench my ichor-hungry weapon tighter in my fingers until they pale.

I will search for Hades and his kingdom of curling smoke, and then I will seize it.

It is the only way in which to revolt against my mother, the sustainer of life itself. It is also the only way to answer the deep rumbling hunger for becoming something… more, more than a young woman who is underestimated because of her femininity or her rosy-cheeked face or her presumed fragility.

Yes, I set a pretty smile on my freckled face. I have dwelled amongst the clouds of Olympus, but the cracks and caves of the earth, leading to Hades’ territory call to my very essence, begging to be conquered.

Do you hear it?

The sound of ghosts singing for a new ruler?

I answer in the direction of my footsteps. I walk and walk through fields, meadows, and woods. My warpath is strewn with saffron and crocuses, but I don’t pay any heed to them. They’re the boring kind of flowers that my mother enjoys tending to. I have always preferred poisonous plants with their toxic perfumes.

A young goddess obsessed with Foxglove, Nightshade, Azalea, and Rhododendrons is a dangerous thing, my mother once whispered to Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom as they sat on the edge of a babbling brook.

I remember that Athena had just scoffed and said ‘I am sure she’s just going through a phase, Demeter. No one has anything to fear from a spring goddess, not even an ant would fear her’. After that, I had shoved her into the water below with all of my might, wanting her to drown. Athena only laughed, then.

But, I don’t think she will laugh now because a deity who is worshipped for her intellect doesn’t like to be proven wrong. I think that’s why part of me has chosen to usurp Death itself. I have heard mortals and immortals alike tremble in terror at the very mention of Hades’ name, and his empire of darkness.

I will make the most feared fear me.

Even this cave, one of the scattered entrances to the Underworld, looks like it is yawning at the sight of me.

Wait, do you hear my mother’s screams?

My mother does not shriek out of fear for my safety because I’ve gone to the gates of Hell.

No, she screams out of fear for the stability of social order and the principles of existence itself because she thinks that I won’t just be satisfied with usurping the land of the Styx and skeletons. She believes I’ll want the sky and the storms and the seas and the seashells too.

Perhaps she’s not wrong.

The other Gods should fear me, especially Hades. After all, power-hungry women can change the fate of nations, but power-hungry goddesses can change the very order of creation.

I enter the Underworld as a usurper, not a kidnapped maiden. The scythe in my hands makes that pretty clear.

The ghosts down here look prettier to me than nymphs with their deathly pale complexions. I like how they bow and cower and grab at my gown.

Funny, these poor souls remind me of wilting flowers longing for Helios’ sun rays. A smile spreads across my lips.

Let them grovel, I am a powerful, unforgiving, and hard-hearted goddess.

Hades will find that out soon enough.

I will make the God of Death grovel too as I rip his kingdom from his as easily as I would rip a flower’s roots from the earth.

After reading her piece, we spoke to Sophie briefly about her writing and influences.

First and foremost, she talks us through how and why she came to write this poetic monologue, indicating that, “I have always been intrigued by the figure of Persephone and I have been reading about her since the age of fifteen. I’ve read a plethora of other people’s work reinterpreting her and her narrative in light of feminism and I sat there and decided to create my own.

“I think there is something so appealing about the idea that struck me about how Persephone potentially sought to conquer the Underworld herself in an act of bitterness at being underestimated and… Of course, it seemed to be very feminist. It was a joy to write from Persephone’s perspective and I loved making her more of a badass in her own right.”

Indeed, I thought it evident from this excellently crafted piece alone that Sophie writes often, and she acknowledges this: “I’ve written a series of children’s books, which I’m trying to get a literary agent for, and I write a lot of poetry. I’m also trying to work on a historical fiction novel, too. My writing is always concerned with mythology, history, and education.”

Finally, I’m curious as to which writers have influenced her and her writing the most. “I adore Madeline Miller’s ‘Song of Achilles’ and I love that she writes so incredibly beautifully about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, so I think this really inspires me to make my own interpretations of Greek myth too. She is probably my biggest influence from a writing point of view.”

That’s a wrap for our Week 2 Poem of the Week – best of luck Sophie with your writing career in the future, and thank you for your wonderful submission!

And if you, too, would like to see an original poem of yours featured right here in The Tab, we would love to hear from you: submissions are open all term, just email your piece to [email protected] (please check out our submission guidelines in the original article here first). We can’t wait to hear from you!

Feature image credits: Keira Quirk

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• Week 1 Poem of the Week: “Looking up from a Book” by Alice Weatherley
• Re-introducing “Poem of the Week”: Publish your poetry at The Tab!
• Preview: An Enemy of the People