An important symbol, Pomegranate is the title and the central image found in the poem. Boland alludes to its Greek image here where a Pomegranate is thought a symbol of fertility and abundance with its blood-red colour (references also found connecting it with menstruation) and its multiple seeds. The ancient Greeks knew pomegranate as the fruit of the dead and in Greek mythology, Hades offered a seed of the fruit to Persephone who took it because she thought it looked like a jewel and thus condemned herself to spend some time with Hades in the underworld every year. It is believed to be fruit of the dead because of its vivid red colour and because of the evidences found in Greek myth of it being the only fruit in the Underworld. In Judaism some scholars believe pomegranate to be the fruit Satan lured Eve with, hence the allusion to it being fruit of the dead (and the condemned in case of Adam and Eve). In Hinduism, it is considered a symbol of prosperity and fertility. Buddhism considers it a “blessed fruit”.
Boland brings together her two loves in this poem: her daughter and the legend of Ceres, The only legend I have ever loved. She says that Ceres tried to use blackmail out of her love for Persephone and Boland claims this legend for herself because she also sees her daughter as her Persephone and says that Love and blackmail are the gist of it. It talks about whether she should or should not use blackmail to keep her daughter by her side. It is about a mother’s choice. As a child in exile Boland sees herself as Persephone and that is why she can enter it anywhere. In the beginning she was someone’s Persephone an exiled child in the crackling dusk of the underworld, the stars blighted. However, now she has a new role to play; of a mother. I walked out in a summer twilight searching for my daughter as Ceres. Keeping Persephone’s fate in her mind, Boland and the Ceres in her were ready make any bargain to keep her. In the legend Ceres lost her daughter during the four months of winter. Eaven Boland also realizes that winter was in store for the mother of every child. The separation was inevitable and inescapable. There is a break in the poem which indicates a change of scene and a shift in the thoughts. In the previous section Boland was worried about winter and the imminent arrival of the time when her child would grow up and leave. In this section It is winter and the stars are hidden just like they were blighted when Boland was Persephone. She sees her daughter with her plate of uncut fruit and is reminded of the pomegranate seeds that keep Persephone from returning to Ceres. Persephone could have been safe and with her mother if she had avoided the temptation of the pomegranate seeds. She could have put an end to her mother’s heart-broken searching but she… plucked a pomegranate. It seems as if Boland is criticizing the child’s lack of self-control. Persephone knew that the Fates would not let her return if she did not resist, she knew of the dangers of the pomegranate. Pomegranate seems a metaphor for what is inevitable: puberty, knowledge, loss of innocence, falling in love with a man, sexual experience, childbirth, fertility etc everything that takes a girl away from her mother and into a world of her own. However, Boland does not accuse the child because she knows that even in the place of death… a child can be hungry. At the heart of legend again refers to how deeply entangled Boland finds her feelings with those of Ceres. Rocks full of unshed tears seems to talk about the legend of Niobe. Since the fruit is uncut therefore Boland’s Persephone is still innocent. Boland sees that she can warn her daughter but then she holds back because it is something that her daughter must decide for herself without any obligations. Beautiful rifts in time is the only gift a mother can give her daughter; a smooth transition from childhood to womanhood: If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift. Accepting the best for her daughter, Boland tells her nothing because she knows that when time will come The legend will be hers as well as mine. She will enter it herself by holding the pomegranate in her hand and to her lips when she is ready. Boland will fulfill a mother’s role just like Ceres learned to compromise and will say nothing.
For me the poem is beautiful and very realistic. Boland merges herself with Ceres very artistically and while doing so envelopes the feelings of insecurity in these lines that haunt every mother. Personally I appreciate it because living away from home has conveyed my own mother’s fears to me through her various gestures and unspoken words. Also I can relate to Persephone, a child in exile and the fears and qualms she has while away from her mother. The poet speaks to me not as an invitation to review my life but as a recollection of all the memories that I cherish of my mothers’.
The poem is written in a monologue and it is noticeable that the words ‘I/me/my/mine’ appear 21 times, and ‘she/her/s’ 17 times: there is no one else in this poem, except for the ‘our’ of the searching. This echoes the single-mindedness of a mother’s love.
The language of the poem intertwines the mother and the legend and both of these are very effectively communicated to us through the syntax that forms links and well-reasoned and well-considered language.
The poem is set into two lengthy sections. The first one gives us the legend and its background while the second one indicates a shift when the mother sees the daughter asleep and makes her decision of deferring the grief. She used emotional language: home, cold, unshed tears, safe, heart-broken, hungry. There are short sentences and long sentences. Short sentences present information in a logical order: love and blackmail the gist of it. Ceres and Persephone the names. I could warn her. There is still a chance. The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured. etc. The long sentences are enjambed and we have run-on-lines. She put out her hand and pulled down/ the French sound for apple and/ the noise of stone and the proof/ that even in the place of death, at the heart of legend, in the midst/ of rocks full of unshed tears/ ready to be diamonds by the time/ the story was told, a child can be/ hungry. There is repetition of words which gives in insistent thought like child, legend, Ceres, stars, story, daughter etc. Legend and the present are connected through crackling dusk of the underworld and summer twilight. There aren’t any complex metaphors or similes however there is alliteration in ‘stairs and stand where I can see’, ‘can of Coke’ and ‘If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift’ etc. Through its shape the poem seems to me as a continuous unbroken trail of tears that mark their trace from the eyes to the cheek.
Conclusively, Boland successfully weaves herself into the legend and the legend into herself with an expert mastery and control. I connected to the poem at a personal level and that in itself is the greatest appreciation that can be given to a poet.
The Eleusinian Mysteries probably included a celebration of Persephone's return, for it was also the return of plants and of life to the earth.
It was one of nine plants offered to Durga, the 10-armed goddess of deliverance.
In Greek mythology, queen of Thebes, wife of Amphion and daughter of Tantalus. The mother of six sons and six daughters, she boasted of her fruitfulness, saying that Leto had only two children. Apollo and Artemis, angry at this insult to their mother, killed all Niobe’s children. Crying inconsolably, she fled to Mt. Sipylus. There Zeus turned her into a stone image that wept perpetually. Niobe is another mother who cries for her children. Her tears are perpetual while Boland’s are unshed because her trial as Ceres is yet to come.
