Persephonous Blue

A Message From Editor-In-Chief Janice Brabaw:

Persephone is not dead; she has just yet to return.   When I find more time to devote to the publication (and some other devoted friends to help), we'll be back asking for submissions once again.

Thank you,

Janice Brabaw




Persephonous Blue is a new literary publication that features confessional poetry and inspired short fiction. Inspired by the myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld - a woman bound to darkness a third of her life. Persephonous Blue is raw, frank, and honest. Persephonous Blue is about madness, darkness, revitalization, redemption. It is a literary publication for "she/he who destroys the light."

Persephonous Blue loves Allen Ginsberg, Riot Grrl, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morrisette, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Morrissey. Persephonous Blue is edgy, passionate, ugly, beautiful, intense, at-your-throat, and heart-on-your-sleeve.   And only slightly pretentious despite that description :)

Persephone was such a beautiful young woman that everyone loved her, even Hades wanted her for himself. One day, when she was collecting flowers on the plain of Enna, the earth suddenly opened and Hades rose up from the gap and abducted her.

Broken-hearted, Demeter (her mother and goddess of fertility) wandered the earth, looking for her daughter. Demeter was so angry that she withdrew herself in loneliness, and the earth ceased to be fertile. Zeus sent Hermes down to Hades to make him release Persephone. Hades grudgingly agreed, but before she went back he gave Persephone a pomegranate. When she later ate of it, it bound her to underworld forever and she had to stay there one-third of the year. When Persephone was in Hades, Demeter refused to let anything grow and winter began. This myth is a symbol of the budding and dying of nature.

Art by Marta Dahlig