The Pomegranate Plague of Gen Z Poets
First, it was the moon. Then cigarettes. Then, girls by windows, ethereal in their ruin. Now? Pomegranates. (from my substack)
If you’ve spent enough time around poetry circles, you’ve seen it before. The doomed love, the Persephone complex, the vaguely sacrificial undertones. And, of course, the fruit.
The Persephone Myth (The Popular Version)
So you think you know the story: Persephone, wreathed in flowers, is stolen by Hades, dragged screaming into the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, weeps and starves the earth in protest. Zeus, eventually deciding this is a problem, orders Persephone’s return—but oops, she ate six pomegranate seeds, so now she’s doomed forever.
That’s the version that survives in girl poetry, anyway.
What Promegerants Girls won’t tell you? The actual myth is a mess. There is no single, definitive version—just fragments, scraps stitched together across centuries. And the pomegranate seed detail?
• Persephone’s myth wasn’t even originally Greek. The story of a goddess being dragged into the underworld predates Greek mythology entirely.
• In Mesopotamian myth, Ishtar (Inanna) descends into the underworld to confront Ereshkigal, queen of the dead. She is stripped of her power and trapped, only escaping by offering someone else in her place—a theme that later appears in Persephone’s myth. This suggests Persephone’s story wasn’t a Greek invention but an adaptation of older Near Eastern fertility-death-rebirth cycles.
• Despoina (“the Mistress”) was worshipped before Persephone—and before Hades was even relevant. In older, pre-Olympian cult traditions, Despoina was the actual chthonic goddess of the underworld. She was venerated alongside Demeter and was probably a far more powerful, independent figure before later mythology reduced Persephone to “Hades’ wife.” Despoina’s cult was deliberately secretive, meaning much of her lore is lost—but she was deeply tied to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were about life, death, and rebirth, not tragic romance.
• Hades wasn’t even a major figure in early versions of the myth. Before he was written in as “the husband,” the underworld was associated more with Gaia (Earth) and Nyx (Night). Hades’ later dominance in the story came as Olympian mythology reshaped older chthonic traditions.
• Persephone was originally Kore (“the Maiden”)—not a tragic heroine, but an archetype of the life-death-rebirth cycle tied to agriculture. She wasn’t a person; she was a function. The whole point was that she disappears, then re-emerges—her personality was secondary to the cosmic process she represented. Only much later did people start treating her as an individual.
• Hesiod’s Theogony (~8th century BCE), one of the oldest Greek texts, barely mentions Persephone. To him, she’s just Hades’ wife, no backstory necessary. This matters because it shows that her abduction wasn’t even a central myth at first—it developed later.
• The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (~7th century BCE) is our earliest and most detailed source. But forget romance—it’s a political nightmare. Hades kidnaps Persephone (the Greek verb used, ἁρπάζω, literally means “to snatch away”—no courtship, no tragic longing). Demeter shuts down the harvest, and Zeus steps in not out of fatherly love, but because no crops mean no sacrifices, and no sacrifices mean starving gods.
The pomegranate? One sentence. Persephone eats something in the Underworld, so she has to stay. That’s it. The number of seeds? Not even mentioned. The whole “I bit into a pomegranate and now I am bound to darkness forever ”dramatics? A complete invention.
• Ovid’s Metamorphoses (~8 CE) is where we finally get the six seeds detail—but Ovid was Roman, writing centuries after the Greek versions had already evolved. His retelling heightens the drama, turning Persephone into a tragic, doomed figure rather than a cosmic force tied to ritual.
• Later Orphic traditions tried to clean it up, recasting Persephone as the mother of Zagreus (a god later merged with Dionysus), tying her to death, rebirth, and mystery cults. At this point, the myth had already spiralled into layers of mysticism.
• Persephone wasn’t always tragic—she became terrifying. The helpless waif image is a modern fabrication. The ancient sources tell a different story—one where Persephone is feared, not mourned.
• In Euripides’ Helen (412 BCE), she is invoked as a vengeful queen of the dead.
• In Homer’s Odyssey (Book 10), Odysseus fears Persephone’s wrath during his necromantic ritual—she is powerful enough to control the dead without Hades.
• Hecate was Persephone’s underworld counterpart and guide. In later versions, Hecate leads Persephone back to the upper world, further reinforcing Hecate’s enduring role in the chthonic realm.
• In Roman tradition, Proserpina (Persephone) was linked to Libera, a goddess of wild fertility and ecstatic rites. This completely contradicts the modern image of her as a fragile, tragic figure.
The Pomegranate Wasn’t Inherently Tragic
• In Hippocratic medical texts, pomegranate juice was used for contraception and abortion remedies—a practical, everyday association, not one of doom.
• In Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (1st century CE), pomegranates were used to treat fevers and digestive issues. No poetic suffering, just ancient medicine.
• In Greek funerary practices, pomegranates symbolised rebirth, not entrapment. They weren’t about being bound to darkness forever—they were about the cycle of life continuing.
Why This Completely Destroys the Promegerants Version of Persephone
1. The myth is about agriculture and divine power, not doomed love. The earliest versions barely mention Hades—this was Demeter’s story, a myth about the life cycle, cosmic balance, and the survival of humanity.
2. Persephone wasn’t always Persephone. She was Kore, an agricultural symbol, not a tragic heroine. Her function came first, her personality second. The idea of her as a fully realised, suffering individual came centuries later.
3. She wasn’t even the first queen of the underworld. Despoina was worshipped before her—an older, more powerful chthonic goddess with nothing to do with victimhood or romance.
4. The pomegranate was never central to the original myth. It’s a tiny, passing detail used as an explanation for why Persephone had to stay in the Underworld. The number of seeds? A Roman invention.
5. The whole myth wasn’t even Greek to begin with. It likely evolved from Mesopotamian myths like Ishtar’s descent, meaning the Promegerants version is a distortion of a distortion.
6. Persephone wasn’t a victim—she was a force of nature. The later versions of her myth don’t show her as tragic—they show her as terrifying. She was a queen who ruled the dead, feared even by heroes. If Promegerants Girls really wanted to stay true to the myth, they wouldn’t write about Persephone tragically eating seeds—they’d write about her punishing mortals for disturbing the dead.
From Chthonic Queen to Tragic Girlcore
The Promegerants version of Persephone strips her of her original role and reduces her to an aesthetic prop. In the oldest sources, she isn’t even a person—she’s a cosmic force, an idea before she’s a character.
Persephone was never just a tragic girl in a dark room with red-stained lips. She was a goddess of cycles, a ritual figure whose presence dictated the survival of humanity. The oldest myths barely even cared about her personal emotions—because that wasn’t the point.
And the pomegranate? Once a symbol of fertility and power, now just a moody Tumblr metaphor for doomed relationships. Would the ancient Greeks recognize Promegerants Persephone?
They’d probably assume she was some mediocre Roman poet’s overdramatic rewrite.
In other words: the version we cling to is a late, Romanized, overly romanticised distortion of a much darker and weirder myth—one that was never about love, tragedy, or women choosing their suffering.
Why Has This Myth Been Hijacked?
Because it’s too easy. The modern interpretation lets poets turn Persephone into:
• A stolen innocence narrative—without engaging with its actual horror.
• A tragic queen figure—without ever giving her power.
• A martyr for womanhood—as if eating a fruit were some grand metaphor for the inevitability of suffering.
But Persephone’s story was never about being loved and ruined.
It was about bargaining, power, and gods who don’t care about human grief.
At this point, the pomegranate isn’t a symbol—it’s a decorative prop.
Its original meanings—fertility, power, the tension between life and death—have been stripped away, replaced with moody girlhood aesthetics.
Poets don’t use it because they understand its history. They use it because it sounds expensive—like a fruit for people who romanticise heartbreak in foreign cities.
But if your poem still works after swapping “pomegranate” for “grapes”, then what are we even doing here?
Read This Before You Write Another Pomegranate Poem
• Homer’s Odyssey → Pomegranates appear in King Alcinous’ eternal orchard, a symbol of wealth, abundance, and divine favour. Not doom.
• Euripides’ Ion → Associated with Aphrodite, symbolising fertility, passion, and desire. Again—not doom.
• Aristophanes’ Lysistrata → Used as an innuendo for female sexuality (which, frankly, would make for a far more interesting poem).
• Dionysian Mysteries → Linked to ecstatic rites, resurrection cults, and the cycle of life and death. If you want to write about pomegranates and darkness, this would actually make sense.
• Roman Religion → Sacred to Juno, particularly in marriage and childbirth rituals, reinforcing their connection to fertility and renewal, not suffering.
• Theophrastus’ Enquiry into Plants → Describes pomegranates as a cultivated luxury fruit, prized for its sweetness, medicinal properties, and status.
• Herodotus’ Histories → Mentions Persian warriors decorating their spears with pomegranates, symbolising strength, fertility, and victory.
• Pausanias’ Description of Greece → Describes pomegranate offerings at Demeter’s sanctuaries, representing fertility, rebirth, and ritual purification—never suffering.
• Plutarch’s Moralia → Links pomegranates to beauty, sensuality, and indulgence in Greek and Roman culture—so, more hedonistic pleasure, less tragic metaphor.
Next time someone writes about a pomegranate-stained mouth, ask them if they mean Persephone or Aristophanes’ sex jokes.
How to Write a Pomegranate Poem That Survives Scrutiny
If you must use it, at least be rigorous. If you’re going full Persephone-core, then be specific. Make it about something real.
Tell us if the juice stains the sheets, if the seeds taste like metal, if they stick between your teeth like regret.
Don’t just drop in “pomegranate” and expect us to do the heavy lifting.
Or consider letting the myth go.
There are so many other symbols, so many richer, underused classical references.
And If You’re Tired of the Pomegranate, Try These Instead
there’s a whole world of classical symbols that carry just as much weight—without the overuse. Here are a few:
Chthonic & Underworld Imagery:
• Asphodel – The ghostly, liminal flowers of the underworld in Greek myth, growing where souls linger. Less overdone than pomegranates, just as eerie.
• Lethe – The river of forgetfulness. Its waters erase memory, a far more unsettling metaphor for loss than a single piece of fruit.
• Orphic Gold Leaves – Real funeral tablets placed with the dead, inscribed with guidance for navigating the afterlife. The ultimate memento mori.
• Owls – Athena’s symbol, but also a nocturnal watcher associated with wisdom, death, and the unknown.
Fertility, Desire & Ruin:
• Fig Trees – Symbolizing sensuality, abundance, and decay (the Greeks also had fig-wood coffins).
• Laurel Wreaths – Victory and poetic ambition, but also a crown of temporary glory—since laurel leaves wither fast.
• Myrrh – A resin used for perfume and burial rites, evoking both seduction and decay. (Also linked to Myrrha, who was cursed to fall in love with her own father. Greek myths were wild.)
Dionysian Madness & Ecstasy:
• Thyrsus – A staff tipped with ivy and pinecones, wielded by Dionysus and his followers. Represents intoxication, divine frenzy, and the thin line between revelry and destruction.
• Ivy – Unlike flowers, it never dies in winter. Clings, suffocates, overtakes. A more interesting metaphor for entanglement than Persephone’s six seeds.
If you must use a pomegranate, at least make it bleed. But if you’re ready for something richer—there are so many other symbols waiting.
