Orpheus

Discuss the poem Orpheus with the community...

https://www.poetry.com/poem/161222/orpheus

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  Vixility

  Your poem is powerful, and its power lies behind the fact that you are familiar with the Greek myth of Orpheus and the loss of the love of his life: Eurydice.
  
  In short, should anyone else read this comment to you, Orpheus enters the underworld after Eurydice's death and attempts to retrieve her from its clutch. Hades, the ruler of the underworld, grants Eurydice's release on the condition that Orpheus doesn't look back to see if she's following him out of the darkness. But Orpheus couldn't resist the temptation and, looking back, loses his love yet again.
  
  For me, the key to your poem is the sentence 'grief only wants to look back.' Hades knew Orpheus couldn't resist looking back because (on an earthly level) when we are grieving the loss of a loved one, we tend to 'look back' on the memories of the past, especially the happy ones; but on a deeper internal and spiritual level, we are helpless to resist looking back: hence Orpheus' second loss.
  
  It's a tough story, and well written by you in these few lines! Such an amazing poem. Your writing style reminds me of Hilda Doolittle (if you haven't read any of her works ... oh, man). Your poem, in its powerful brevity, also brought to mind a poem written by Robert Hayden: Perseus. His phrase 'hated truth' in that poem and your phrase 'eroding trust' in yours ... absolutely perfect, nearly fatalistic, and beautiful.
  
  I would love to know what inspired this poem, if that's not too much to ask ... more »

  LikeReply10 months ago