{"id":1704,"date":"2009-06-12T00:12:06","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T06:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2009-12-08T08:19:15","modified_gmt":"2009-12-08T14:19:15","slug":"poetry-friday-breaking-through-a-sheet-of-sugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1704","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Breaking through a sheet of sugar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.surlalunefairytales.com\/illustrations\/hanselgretel\/harbourhansel6.html\"><img src='http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/hg.jpg' alt='NO! Don\u2019t eat it! Run away!' \/><\/a>I love fairy tales. And I love fairy tale adaptations and allusions, especially when they don&#8217;t shy away from the darkness of those original stories.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why I was so pleased to discover <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/archive\/poem.html?id=179762\"><strong>&#8220;Gretel in Darkness&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/archive\/poet.html?id=2578\"><strong>Louise Gl\u00fcck<\/strong><\/a>. It uses brilliant imagery to put a sobering spin on the classic tale by imagining <em>what comes next<\/em> &#8212; after the witch is killed, the mother is dead, and the kids are back at home, safe and sound. It&#8217;s not exactly &#8220;happily ever after&#8221; &#8211; and really, how could it be? What child could really make it through such a story (poverty, abandonment, kidnapping, slavery, cannibalism, and murder) emotionally unscathed? How does a girl grow up in a world where all the mother figures see infanticide as a reasonable means to fill one&#8217;s belly?<\/p>\n<p>Poor Gretel. One suspects that she&#8217;ll never really find her way out of those woods.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is the world we wanted.<br \/>\nAll who would have seen us dead<br \/>\nare dead. I hear the witch\u2019s cry<br \/>\nbreak in the moonlight through a sheet<br \/>\nof sugar: God rewards.<br \/>\nHer tongue shrivels into gas. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/archive\/poem.html?id=179762\"><strong>Click here for the rest.<\/strong><\/a> You&#8217;ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n<p><\/center>* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n<p>This week&#8217;s Poetry Friday Round-Up is being hosted by Brian Jung at his blog, <a href=\"http:\/\/mrchompchomp.blogspot.com\/\"><strong>Critique de Mr. Chompchomp<\/strong><\/a>. I&#8217;m serious. How great is that name?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love fairy tales. And I love fairy tale adaptations and allusions, especially when they don&#8217;t shy away from the darkness of those original stories. That&#8217;s why I was so pleased to discover &#8220;Gretel in Darkness&#8221; by Louise Gl\u00fcck. It uses brilliant imagery to put a sobering spin on the classic tale by imagining what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}