Demeter: A embroidered poem about loss and motherhood

This poem, embroidered onto a vintage cloth, addresses the pain of loss and absence in motherhood, seen through the lens of the goddess Demeter when she mourns the loss of her daughter Persephone to Hades each winter, a situation imposed upon her through the trickery of her husband Zeus. It first appeared in Vanessa Marr’s article ‘Reclaiming Stories: Invoking the goddess’, co-written with Jessica Moriarty as part of their collaborative and creative autoethnographic practice. Just as ancient women told stories whilst working with cloth, as a practice-based researcher Marr frequently creates artwork alongside her academic writing, employing the feminine legacy of stitch to explore and embody gendered experiences.