" Demeter's Prayer to Hades"

 Though this is my final poem discussion for Rita Dove, this is hands-down my favorite poem that I have read by her thus far! This point is about the speaker, which is Demeter , praying for her brother Hades to be wise and not consistently act on impulse / desire, as most of the time when he does this, he causes pain or hurt to the world. I believe that the setting or time period of this fantasy prayer was right after Hades tricked Demeter's daughter, Persephone, into becoming his wife and making her stay with him in the Underworld for half a year. There was a mix of good and bad connotative words in the poem ( "knowledge", "faith","dreamed", " curses", "dying"), making the prayer to be unbiased and truthful or realistic. The poet's tone in this poem is disappointment, sadness, but also wisdom. The theme is that acting on desire versus wisdom can cause pain to others and it might backfire on one's self also. Therefore, one is supposed to be smart about what they ask for or what they manipulate in order to achieve what they asked for.

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