Persephone and Joan
Paintings by Julie Gearan and Photographs by Tina tryforos
Mothers and daughters
Persephone
Manvir Singh writes. “Nor is the quest just a scholarly game; it’s an attempt to prove, against all odds, that our wild, warring species shares something irreducible at its core.”
The fleeing maiden from Eleusis, on a ledger of Greeks names in the vicinity of Eagle Avenue in the Bronx, NY
Their teeth are smooth and free from etched illustrations of conquest and love. No longer for chewing, they are anchors for you. You hold onto them. You are swallowed whole.
Are you a Whale and Pomegranate? /In Oil and Light
Eighteen pomegranates from one tree on the southern coast of Crete
Baywatch bathing suit, goggles, teeth, legs, caution tape, helicopter, PARASOL
On the edge of downtown Providence
Such the haste of sudden love
The Compass Rose
Conversations with Persephone (excerpt) by Nikita Gill
I asked Persephone,
“How could you grow to love him?
He took you from flowers to a kingdom
where no living thing can grow.”
Persephone smiled,
“My darling, every flower on your earth withers.
What Hades gave me was a crown
Made for the immortal flowers in my bones”
In
Out
Crying Crocuses
Turns out, one can’t be near a whale’s gaping jaws during a pandemic. Or after a death. Or while a child is suffering along with the rest of the world. You might just climb right into that belly and never come out.
No – you need to swim, count breaths.
The braid shape resembles a head of wheat, this one is manufactured, most likely in China..
It was found in a schoolyard while taking a break from working as an election official, November 2020.
You hold onto them
From the underworld
