The season has been slowly turning cooler – and this month’s read-aloud reminds us why.

Arthur Stringer (1874 – 1950) was a Canadian novelist, poet, and dramatist whose works were published both in print and onscreen. Although much of his work consisted of crime novellas and screenplays, Stringer was an accomplished poet whose free verse style became a hallmark of his lyric writings.

The dramatic poem “Persephone” was published in Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia, a dramatic work featuring themes and characters from Greek mythology. The poem is a direct address to the goddess Demeter by her daughter Persephone, the latter who serves as both goddess of springtime and the dreaded queen of the underworld. Persephone recounts her abduction to the underworld by Hades, god of the dead; and how she came in time to love him as he loves her.

Want to read along? Click here to read the poem on Project Gutenberg.

Sound effects included in this video were downloaded from Freesound.org and incorporated in accordance with the Creative Commons Attributions License. No copyright infringement and/or commercial usage is intended.

Thank you to the Friends of the Bloomfield Township Public Library for sponsoring the closed captioning of this video.

A new read-aloud will be published every month on the Adult Services Vimeo page, so keep an eye out for new titles! Material selected for these read-alouds are in the public domain and are sourced from Project Gutenberg, so that listeners can read along if they would like.