Last year I started a collection of adaptations of fairy tales. Some are poems, some are stories, and some, strangely enough, are epitaphs. All, however, are looking at the story through the perspective of some character whose voice is overlooked in the original telling. My favourite exploration was a poem I called "Six White Horses" that draws on the Cinderella story. I'm including it in this post because the poem I wrote this week is also a Cinderella adaptation, and making connections is fun.
After four years as an English major, I cannot help mentioning that both of these poems are dramatic monologues, which became my favourite kind of poem in the last two years of my undergrad. I won't bore you with the details, but if you're interested check out Tennyson and Browning. Especially Tennyson's "Ulysses".
I like this week's poem, which means I will revise it heavily at some point. For now, though, I am publishing this version and "Six White Horses" with a Creative Commons licence each. These licences state that anyone can use these poems and adapt them however they want, as long as they give me credit ("attribution") and license their own work through the Creative Commons instead of copyright ("share alike").
Can you tell that my program this year includes a copyright course? It seems whenever a class interests me, I can't help re-teaching what I'm taught. But enough of this.
The poems:
Six White Horses
It weren’t so bad to be a mouse;
The life was small, but so were we.
Our highest cares were crumbs and tea
(Which ain’t too scarce in a manor house).
A fine life! Nibble, nuzzle, be
Just nimble enough to ‘scape the broom,
Just glad enough to ‘scape the gloom,
Just free enough to know ye’r free.
And sure, a humble life. Why not?
When “ostentation” meant ye wore
Yer whiskers curled, or oiled yer fur,
Or weren’t well-pleased with what ye’d got.
Aye, what we’d got weren’t much, it’s true.
Ye’d call us poor – but poor’s no vice,
And poverty’s enough for mice;
It does us, or we make it do.
And all we asked was room to creep,
A bite of food, a bit of drink,
Quick feet to flee, bright eyes to blink,
A common nest, and dreamless sleep.
Imagine, then, how t’was for us
(Who’d scarce imagined once before),
Sent skittering across the floor,
In a squealing, stumbling, tumbling fuss
Of paws and claws and hoof and hair,
And straightening up to unheard-of height,
And seein’ ourselves in each other: white
And tall and proud, and Lord, I swear
The seein’ weren’t the marvel. No,
‘Twas the feelin’. The feelin’! The wind! The heat
Of our breath and our legs as we beat, we beat
The road, and the cry was “Go! And go!”
Then the race in the dark on the stroke of the hour –
It was breathless and boundless and freedom and flight –
What were mice? We were gods! And we breathed in the night
And the rush of the air, of the pulse, of the power.
And then – and then – mere mice again,
But mice aware of grander things,
We scuttled home with folded wings
And glowing eyes. And glory! when
The others heard our tale, we knew
They’d knot their tails for envy. Why,
If once we only closed an eye
We’d see that wondrous chase anew.
It weren’t so bad to be a mouse.
The life was small, but so were we.
What made you show us liberty
Too wide for the walls of the manor house?
You dressed a cinder-girl in white;
You granted us fleet glory. Why?
We never asked to stand so high.
We never wished to dream of flight.
Six White Horses by
Erin Woods is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Evergreen
Our sister was a feeble hazel twig,
While I was grim and grand and evergreen.
When all her springtime colours faded, fell,
And left her ragged, I was clad in green.
In green. In green. And while her bare, white arms
Reached up in suppliance, I busied mine
Amid my sweeping skirts. She shivered in
The winter wind, of course: slim and shining,
Pitied. Piteous. I, the fortunate,
Looked on in brooding splendour: lucky
Evergreen with all my shadows gathered close.
And oh, that gnawing in the pit of my
Full stomach, looking at her, frail and free.
Hate her? No. I know what hate is. Hate
Is what they gave me when they saw me green
And grand. You too, you know. They hated us–
Well-fed, well-dressed. But she was empty. She
Had room enough for love.
And now, my dear?
Now we two are grotesque, forgotten, drained
Of blood and pitch and clout and consequence,
While she will kiss the sun and taste new spring.
I laugh to think her full and splendid. Oh,
How little she can know what fullness means!
Yes, all the hungry ones will hate her now,
And I need never see again in green.
Evergreen by
Erin Woods is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
One more thing: if you happen to have thoughts or feedback, do share! I'm no less insecure about my poems than your average writer, but I do crave criticism about as much as I fear it.
