Rita Dove uses various techniques in her poetry to provide enjoyment to readers beyond just symbolism. In the poems "Persephone, Falling", "Protection", and "Persephone Abducted", she employs unusual punctuation, changes in tone, imagery, irony, diction, and historical allusions. These techniques create ambiguity, anticipation, and appeal to the emotions. While the poems symbolize the relationship between Persephone and Demeter, Dove's complex writing style serves to captivate readers and transport them to other worlds, providing a fuller enjoyment of the poetry.

1. Literatures in English
Mr. Ramsey
January 6, 2014
Daineda Rodney
Symbolism is the sole source of a reader’s enjoyment of poetry. With reference to atleast
THREE poems studied, discuss the extent to which represents your encounter with poetry.
Anyone can write a poem however, it takes a good poet to capture their reader’s mind
and toy with their emotions. Their gift of words often opens doors and transport readers to a
world unknown or too risky to do in reality. Their ability to create a simple yet significant image
as well as their ability to also structure the poem in such a way that everything seems to fit and as
one can say belong, helps to add to the reader’s enjoyment. Rita Dove, an African American
poet, in her collection of sonnet based poems “Mother Love” which is based on the Greek Myth
of the goddess Demeter and the demise of her daughter Persephone, uses multiple techniques to
bring a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment to her readers. Her use of imagery, literary devices,
diction and punctuation in the structuring of her poems not only creates symbolic references but
tends to encapsulate and captivate her readers. Her poems, “Persephone, Falling”, “Protection”
and “Persephone Abducted” are ideal on the subject of the opinion that symbolism is not the only
source of a reader’s enjoyment of poetry.
In “Persephone, Falling”, one of the first thing that would captivate the reader is shown in
the title itself, “Persephone, Falling”. Looking at the title at first glance, with a closed mindset
and an opened eye, one might think that Dove made an error when writing because who puts a
comma in the middle of a poem title? However, having an opened mindset along with an opened
eye, one comes to realize that the comma in the poem gives off a deeper meaning than one might
have conjured at first. Removing the punctuation from the title would imply that Persephone has
taken a physical fall but re-inserting the punctuation and upon reading, reasoning and analyzing
the poem a different meaning is given. It is now revealed that Persephone’s ‘fall’ is not a
physical fall but rather the fall she has experienced is one from grace or from a certain position in

2. society to a lower one. In this Dove uses punctuation to assist in creating a symbolism of
Persephone’s fall into the devil’s hands.
Dove’s unusual use of punctuation was not limited to just the title of “Persephone,
Falling”, but her technique can also be seen in line 3 when the persona states that Persephone
“stooped to pull harder-”, the unusual use of a hyphen instead of a comma or a period helps to
create an atmosphere of anticipation and enjoyment for the readers. With the creation of
anticipation and the reader now thriving on the need to know what happens next makes way for
the use of enjambment in lines 5-6 “on his glittering terrible...he claimed his due.” This
enjambment creates and adds an imagery of suspense as no one knows entirely who was on the
carriage or what was done to make him feel the need to such and such claim his due, which was
Persephone. This imagery which Dove created, says so much yet so little, thus it increases the
level of enjoyment as well as the level of analysing and the ability to draw different conclusions,
just like a mystery novel.
Another technique that assists in creating a sense of enjoyment to poetry readers is the
difference in the tone used. In the octave, the tone used is one of someone narrating what had
happened and giving a hint of the reason why. However, the tone changes in the sestet and this is
shown by not only the structure of the stanza but by the parenthesis. The parenthesis points to
the voice of the mother which could be either the poet herself or of the character Demeter. It
shows the tone changing from a narration to a parental tone or a warning tone. This tone is used
to bring across the message of why the story was told. Especially with the use of a biblical
allusion, the poem could be compared to a parable.
In the Dove’s next poem, “Protection”, the technique of tone is used. There is a change of
tone from being of a rhetorical aspect at the beginning of the poem as seen in lines 1-2, “are you
having a good time? Are you having a time at all?” To being unsure in the end, lines 13-14, “are
you really all over with? How done is gone?” The change in tone adds to the change in the mood
of the poem, hence, contributing to the change in the reader’s emotions and also their way of
thinking.

3. In “Protection”, Dove made use of symbolism in line 6 where she states “”Good” hair has
no body...” the good which is in quotation symbolizes strength. Later, an ironic statement is
made, which would add to the reader’s enjoyment. The statement is seen in line 7, where the
speaker in reminiscing states “like trained ivy....” It is ironic in terms of the fact that ivy is a
poisonous plant that seems to continuously grow and devour everything in its path. Therefore it
puts forward the question of how can something so poisonous be trained? Therefore the
conclusion could be made after analyzing, that strength is good but it can also be deadly and
cannot be contained when it starts to spread. There is also the use of symbolism in line 12, “the
snail has lost its home”. This symbolizes that the protection that once existed was now gone and
also what was meant to be protection can be the very thing that destroys you. This protection can
be classified as a mother’s protection which has dual role: both being destructive and beneficial.
In “Persephone Abducted”, the poem is structured around ‘she’. ‘She’ could b classified
firstly as Persephone then later and mainly as Demeter. With the use of ‘she’, a different point of
view is given of the abduction of Persephone. The speaker begins by giving the reader an idea of
what transpired after the abduction of Persephone using imagery. Lines 2-4 of the poem
illustrates the attitude of Demeter upon learning of her daughter’s kidnapping and how due to the
pain of losing her daughter, Demeter’s feature changed to that of a hag’s after she panicked and
left in anger. This imagery shows how much she was affected because gods are known to be
immortal therefore they do not age. This can appeal also to any mother who has lost their child.
Dove’s choice of words helps as a way of contributing to the reader’s enjoyment and appealing
to their emotions. Dove’s diction in “Persephone Abducted” is both relatable and easy to
understand, lines 5-6, “no one can tell a mother how to act...no laws when laws are broken” as
well as complex and questionable, line 7, “some say...nourishment for pain...call it Philosophy”.
Her format of writing captivates, entices and manipulates her readers thus creating often times a
sense of enjoyment and pleasure. Dove also creates a mode of enjoyment for her readers with the
use of allusion in the historical context lines 13-14, “she left us singing in the field oblivious
to....the ache of our own bent backs”. The historical allusion refers to the time of slavery when
the field slaves were singing, oblivious to all but the pain, as they worked in the field planting
and reaping sugar cane for their master. This allusion is used as Demeter was said to be the
goddess of agriculture, therefore her abandoning her role and duties as goddess of crops in search
for her daughter will cause pain on those who depend on her.

4. All these different technique that Dove used ranging from the simple structuring of the
poems to the unusual use of punctuation, imagery and literary devices, Dove brings forth not
only historical knowledge but also a sense of enjoyment to poetry readers that using symbolism
alone could not achieve. All three (3) poems, in the end, along with creating a sense of
enjoyment, sheds a light on the nature of love between a mother and daughter and on how
powerful and destructive it is.