{"id":643,"date":"2007-05-25T00:59:12","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T06:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=643"},"modified":"2007-05-25T07:40:45","modified_gmt":"2007-05-25T13:40:45","slug":"poetry-friday-the-principle-of-girl-as-flower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=643","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: &#8220;the principle of girl as flower&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/dc.thumbnail.gif' alt='Daffodil, Crocodile' \/><img src='http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/daffodil.thumbnail.gif' alt='Daffodil' \/>Oh, what are the odds? I popped over to the <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/poetry\/180\/\">Poetry 180<\/a><\/strong> site to look for a poem to post, and clicked on this one because I liked the title and it sounded, you know, springy&#8230; And what do I find:  a poem about a girl dressed like a daffodil. <em>The very day after<\/em> Jules reviewed <strong><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=641\">Daffodil, Crocodile<\/a><\/em><\/strong> &#8211; a picture book about a girl named Daffodil who drops the girly-girl bit and runs around pretending to be a crocodile for a while. Coincidence? I think not&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The character first appeared in Jenkins&#8217;s <strong><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.emilyjenkins.com\/daffodil.html\">Daffodil<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (FSG\/Frances Foster, 2004), a great story in which triplet girls, all named after flowers, rebel against their mother&#8217;s habit of dressing them in poufy concoctions color-coded to their names. Daffodil, naturally, is always forced to wear yellow &#8211; until she&#8217;s finally allowed to choose her own cherry-red pant suit. I like this girl. It&#8217;s no surprise to me that in her second book she&#8217;s accessorizing with a papier-mache crocodile head.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s fun to think about girls like Daffodil while reading this poem, <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/poetry\/180\/042.html\">&#8220;Because You Left Me a Handful of Daffodils&#8221;<\/a><\/strong> by <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uwec.edu\/newsbureau\/release\/past\/1999\/99-06\/061899Garland.html\">Max Garland<\/a><\/strong>. I bet the narrator, so intimidated (and physically hindered) by this lovely girl in her layers of crinoline, has no idea what a cage that dress can be for a girl.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She wore a dress based upon the principle<br \/>\nof the daffodil: puffed sleeves,<br \/>\ninflated bodice, profusion<br \/>\nof frills along the shoulder blades<br \/>\nand hemline.<\/p>\n<p>A dress based upon the principle of girl<br \/>\nas flower; everything unfolding, spilling<br \/>\noutward and downward: ribbon, stole,<br \/>\ncorsage, sash.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;And escorting her down the runway<br \/>\nwas a losing battle, trying to march<br \/>\ndown among the full, thick folds<br \/>\nof crinoline, into the barrage of her<br \/>\nfather&#8217;s flashbulbs, wading<br \/>\nthe backwash of her mother&#8217;s<br \/>\nperfume&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the poem in its entirety <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/poetry\/180\/042.html\">here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, what are the odds? I popped over to the Poetry 180 site to look for a poem to post, and clicked on this one because I liked the title and it sounded, you know, springy&#8230; And what do I find: a poem about a girl dressed like a daffodil. The very day after Jules [&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-643","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\/643","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=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}