The Price, Searching

[mariness]

Two of my poems, "The Price" and "Searching", are up at Polu Texni this morning.

As some of you have probably guessed by now, these, along with Decisions and Waterdance, are part of a series, exploring two of my passions: structured poems and fairy tales. "Searching" is very loosely based on one of my favorite fairy tales, "East o' the Sun, West o

Comments

[selfavowedgeek]

You seem to be having a good year with your poetry endeavors. My hat's off to you.

I think it's pretty cool how you're tying together your poems, too.

[mariness]

Thanks. For whatever reason, I don't tend to write a lot of stand alone poems -- I have some (mostly mainstream, not speculative poetry), but more generally, when I start to write a poem based on myth or folklore or whatever I get a bit obsessed and then want to write a lot more just like it or from the same source.

I'm hoping to get my other collection more ready for publication in a few months -- the individual poems from that aren't finding a market, I think because, as I realized after rereading them, unlike these fairy tale ones, they really don't stand alone that well, showcasing the problems with writing poems in a series.

[bayushi]

I still love both of these poems, and they're MARVELOUS. Thought-provoking, and still speaking the the inner archetypes of the fairy tales that I loved as a child, too.

Yay, you!

[mariness]

Thanks :)

I have to admit that the second one is growing on me.

[shadefell]

In the brother swans story, it's interesting that even though she is unable to speak/defend herself verbally the female protagonist is still able to structure her life and win over the vocal villains (evil mother in law yet again). On the surface, it's alarming that you have one more female character deprived of a voice, but she still remains powerful. And yes, extra bonus points for her not sitting passively by waiting to be rescued by someone else.

[mariness]

And intriguingly, these tales are generally less well known than those featuring passive heroines -- Rapunzel, unable to leave her tower; Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, both deprived of the ability to move.

(Cinderella is slightly different here, since even in the best known Perrault version, she in theory receives her happy ending because she has always worked hard and been patient.)

[shadefell]

Snarky feminist response: considering that the stories were written down and published primarily by men, I'm not surprised that passivity and a willingness to be rescued were prized so highly.

[mariness]

Misinterpretation

[songdancer]

Very cool. The 'Seven Swans' story was always one of my favorites, too, and got me interested in textile work, as it described (at least in the version I had) how she had to work the thorns with her bare hands and feet as she made the yarn for the shirts for her brothers.

[mariness]

I've read a couple of versions that very specifically spell out how she has to crush the nettles and make the thread -- sometimes with her feet, sometimes with her bare hands, and a few versions where the prince questions why her hands are red and painful, and others where he entirely fails to notice. More questions that I might focus on if I ever get around to writing a novel length version of the tale.