Tony Harrison: Florida Frost

Allusion to Classical figure Pluto and Proserpine are mentioned by name but there are also allusions to Orpheus and Eurydice (e.g. ‘Never had saws more venom in their bite [...] his sense of loss sent him berserk [...] Earth dragged down his darling and his dear’).

Relationship to Classical text Florida kumquats, killed by harsh frost, elide with the image of pomegranates given to Persephone. A false harvest of deathly fruit forms the backdrop to the poem’s main subject: a narrative of premature death and lost love. There is no suggestion of a specific source-text.