Persephone in Hades

Ruth Pitter, who died in 1992, was the first (but not the last) woman poet to be awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (in 1955). She was a remarkable writer of beautiful and moving lyrics, haunting in their melodic simplicity. She also won a firm following for her comic verse, still as funny today as it was when it was first written. In 1931, she completed her only lengthy narrative poem, Persephone in Hades. It was printed privately and quickly forgotten. However, Persephone is a statement of faith, in the classical style, recording Pitter's dark night of the soul and triumph of the spirit - and if this is not early feminist writing, it is certainly, in its own way, iconoclastic. With a preface by Helena Nelson, here is an opportunity to enter the Underworld, and return enriched.