Comments | ysabetwordsmith: Poem: "Aguana"

ysabetwordsmith

Poem: "Aguana"

Jan 26, 2013 03:21

This poem came out of the January 22, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from ellenmillion. It also fills the "water" square on my Dark Fantasy Bingo Card. It has been sponsored by rix_scaedu. This poem belongs to the series Fiorenza the Wisewoman. You can read more about the aguane online.

( Read more... )

fantasy, reading, writing, fishbowl, poetry, cyberfunded creativity, poem, ethnic studies

Comments 15

rix_scaedu January 26 2013, 09:46:18 UTC

I hope the aguane is doing better than her sisters! :)

Well... ysabetwordsmith January 26 2013, 20:10:21 UTC

I would think so. Cooperation tends to produce better results.

marina_bonomi January 26 2013, 13:02:41 UTC

Beautiful as usual. The aguane (anguane in my part of Northern Italy) are fascinating creatures (in our rapresentation they have goat feet but normal arms but they change a lot depending on the place). I guess around here (between Veneto and Lombardy) they got mixed up with the banshee: we have the saying 'sigar come na 'nguana' (scream like an anguana)that I've never heard anywhere else.

Language note: aguane is the plural form, singular is aguana.

Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 26 2013, 20:31:16 UTC

>> Beautiful as usual. <<

Thank you! I'm glad you liked this.

>>The aguane (anguane in my part of Northern Italy) are fascinating creatures (in our rapresentation they have goat feet but normal arms but they change a lot depending on the place). I guess around here (between Veneto and Lombardy) they got mixed up with the banshee: we have the saying 'sigar come na 'nguana' (scream like an anguana)that I've never heard anywhere else.<<

Fascinating. Maybe it has to do with the way goats can shriek when distressed?

>>Language note: aguane is the plural form, singular is aguana.<<

Much appreciated. I should have caught that from all my work with fate/fata. I have edited the poem accordingly. Please let me know if you spot errors in any of the other poems; there were a fair number this time with Italian fragments.

e_scapism101 January 26 2013, 15:50:32 UTC

I love this series! (In my head, Fiorenza has descendants at Hart's Farm and Monster House.)

Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 26 2013, 20:24:00 UTC

I have gradually come to suspect that Fiorenza and Hart's Farm are sequentially connected within the same world, although it's less visible because the more fantastical aspects of Hart's Farm haven't been published yet.

Monster House, I'm less sure of. Much of the rest of the world there seems more solidly formed, like ours, and less malleable the way fairy tale reality is in Fiorenza the Wisewoman.

*ponder* The best explanation I could come up with for something like that would be if the mortal world and magical world(s) were in relative motion rather like the planets, and that motion influenced the degree to which inhabitants could interact across the worlds and what kind of rules governed reality. Which could be an interesting way of explaining why science has thought such radically different things over the centuries: some of those may have been true at the time they were observed, but ceased to be true later. Or some things may have been locally true but not universally true.

Re: Thank you! e_scapism101 January 26 2013, 23:51:50 UTC

There's also the (perceived, since you've never stated where Monster House is) difference between the Old World and the New World, and the differences in how an agrarian culture is closer to the land than modern culture. The MH family deals a lot more with household spirits than with wider mythology, although the Slumber Party poem demonstrates that people of different heritages brought their traditional household spirits to the US with them. I love the idea of things having been true at the time of observation as relates to mythology.

Re: Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 27 2013, 04:56:15 UTC

>>There's also the (perceived, since you've never stated where Monster House is) difference between the Old World and the New World,<<

Monster House is in suburban America. Judging from the climate I'd say continental United States.

>> and the differences in how an agrarian culture is closer to the land than modern culture. The MH family deals a lot more with household spirits than with wider mythology, although the Slumber Party poem demonstrates that people of different heritages brought their traditional household spirits to the US with them.<<

Also true.

>> I love the idea of things having been true at the time of observation as relates to mythology. <<

I'm holding onto that as a possibility. I haven't made a firm decision about whether or not these series are connected. They are more similar to each other than to some other places I write. Sometimes I can tell very clearly that this and that piece happen in the same setting. Other times it's much more vague.

my_partner_doug is fairly strong against the idea of connecting these ( ... )

Thread 8

thnidu January 26 2013, 17:18:53 UTC

I *like*! Not surprising… :-) This is the first I've heard of a(n)guane. & molte grazie, maria_bonome, for the dialect notes!

marina_bonomi January 26 2013, 22:41:55 UTC

My pleasure!

Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 27 2013, 03:22:48 UTC

>>I *like*! Not surprising… :-) <<

I'm happy to hear that.

>> This is the first I've heard of a(n)guane. & molte grazie, maria_bonome, for the dialect notes! <<

They're new to me too. I went looking for Italian fairy tale creatures.

marina_bonomi has graciously done the cultural fact-checking for me on several poems from this batch, which has helped a lot.