Double Persephone is a self-published poetry collection written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood in 1961. Atwood handset the book herself with a flat bed press, designed the cover with linoblocks, and only made 220 copies. It was the first publication ever released by Atwood, and comprises seven poems: "Formal Garden", "Pastoral", "Iconic Landscape", "Persephone Departing", "Chthonic Love", "Her Song", "and "Double Persephone".
The opening poem of Double Persephone, "Formal Garden," a "girl with the gorgon touch" walks through the title location searching for "a living wrist and arm", but all she finds is a "a line of statues" with "marble flesh. The girl apparently has traits similar to Medusa, who could turn men to stone by glancing upon them.
Atwood followed up the collection with another book of poetry released in 1964, The Circle Game.
Famous quotes containing the word double:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)