"Black Mesa Poems" by Jimmy Santiago Baca

I've been reading Baudelair's The Flowers of Evil and have been enjoying the "anti-romanticism" that takes place within his poetry. I kind of found the same thing going on in Baca's poems. This may be a stretch on my own part. A forced connection. But it's interesting, nonetheless.

Baudelair wrote about terrible things with beautiful language to the point where the terrible seemed beautiful. In a way, that is what Baca is doing. Baca had spent time behind bars, but in his poetry, where these bars are not seen and this inprisonment is not on the surface, Baca uses beautiful, natural imagery--imagery of things that flow freely and grow wildly--as commentary or stark contrast to how his life was behind those bars. In other words, like Baudelaire, he is using beautiful imagery to talk about something terrible.

Behind every natural element portrayed in his poetry, there seems to be a dark shadow or a cold wind that is promised. It is not exactly seen or felt, but the reader knows it is there or is expecting for it to arise. In his poem "Fall", this takes place. Here is the first stanza.

Somber hue diffused on everything.
Each creature, each emptied corn stalk,
is richly bundled in mellow light.
In that open unharvested field of my own life,
I have fathered small joys and memories.
My heart was once a lover's swing that creaked in wind
of these calm fall days.
Autumn chants my visions to sleep,
and travels me back into a night
when I could touch stars and believed in myself.

Beautiful imagery is used here, but there are words that leave an unsettling feeling. Adjectives: somber, emptied, mellow, unharvested, creaked. And there are phrases and the use of the past tense that ensure us that the present is not as sweet: emptied, I have fathered, small joys, was once, chants my visions to sleep, travels me back, when I could....

All of these words and phrases are not promising of any light, but the language itself is gorgeous.

His poems are also very solitary. The other "characters" in his poems are typically not human, which reflects the solitude that he must have grown accustomed to in his tumultuous life. These poems surely ring as poems written by a man whose father was absent. A man who is troubled in one way or another. I just scowled at myself for writing that previous sentence. I feel like a quack of a psychologist. But his poems are very solitary. He is his only character for the most part. He walks on streets alone. He stands behind bars, peering down into tiers. He likens himself to a tree. Even in poems that do consist of other characters, he is a lonesome, child-like character.

It is difficult these days for poets to not write poems with "I", "me", "myself", or "mine" in it. I wonder how difficult of a task this would be for Baca...to write a poem that reflects absolutely who he is, but without the use of those simple words. To use the landscape or the characterizations of other people to show or tell who he really is as a poet. I think that would make an interesting exercise for any poet. Write about yourself without talking about yourself.

"Vice" by Ai

After reading the "Cruelty" section of Vice, I immediately looked up pictures of Tucson, Arizona. I am judging the book by its cover. I am judging the author by her photograph and the modest biography on the dust jacket of the book. Ai is part African America, Asian American, and Native American. In other words, very multi-cultural and that allows a lot of exploration for a writer, if you ask me. Writers like to find something that they belong to, be it a religion, a lifestyle, a place, nature, or a passion/hobby/job (e.g. the carpenter poet, the waitress poet). When reading the persona poems in "Cruelty", I felt so far away from the author. I imagined the narrator being anything but African American, Asian American, or Native American. Call me judgmental or stereotypical, but I imagined southern, white simpleton farmers, men and women dressed in desperation.

I really loved this section and it was my favorite of the whole book. I had such a hard time connecting these poems to the contemplative profile of Ai on the back of the book, hand on her chin, bun of hair high on her head, a large, ornate earring hanging heavy from her stretched ear lobe. The picture is dark at the bottom, though, like a lot of her poems. How else was I supposed to connect her to this poetry? Should I even concern myself with this task? Am I doing an injustice? But I eventually thought of place. These poems, I believe, can take place in a dark solitude that can be found in the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona.

The places in her poems are dark and dry. The immediate image in my head, when I picture the "essence" of her poetry, is dark. It is outside and it is night. The moon is not so bright. The brightest thing may be a yellow speck of a porch light from the shack of a farm house in the distance. Noise comes from what the slow wind moves. And perhaps from some random animals in the night. But there is also a shrill scream. That of a woman. Or the growl of an angry man. There are cold, rusty things in sheds and grass, yellow and dried, from the sun that day. That's what I picture. Something dark is happening within the house. Inside, at the bottom of the poem.

These poems also seem to possess an archaic or obsolete time-frame in them. I can't tell if it's the setting that provokes this or if it is the actual language that takes me back to older times. Words like midwife, white lace slip, oxhide boots give the time away. "Child Beater" was a very uncomfortable poem to read. Not just because of the topic, but because of the vulnerability portrayed in the poem. I get extremely uncomfortable when I must witness someone being vulnerable. I hate when people bend down to tie their shoes, only their backs to defend whatever may come upon them. I hate being behind people long enough to know that I'm behind them and that they are not aware that what they can't see, I can see. I hate it. I hate it. But at the same time, what I hate (hate is not the right word, because it's more discomfort than hatred), I am also fascinated with. I am drawn to being uncomfortable, so I enjoyed this poem while at the same time, I was horrified. Here's a section of "Child Beater" that really got to me.

Her body, somehow fat, though I feed her only once a day,
reminds me of my own just after she was born.
It's been seven years, but I still can't forget how I felt.
How heavy it feels to look at her.

I lay the belt on a chair
and get her dinner bowl.
I hit the spoon against it, set it down
and watch her crawl to it,
pausing after each forward thrust of her legs
and when she takes her first bite,
I grab the belt and beat her across the back
until her tears, beads of salt-filled glass, falling,
shatter on the floor.

*

The physical descriptions of the daughter (being fat, the forward thrust of her legs) are very subtle, yet there seems to be so much vulnerability there. And to be in the psyche of the the narrator is something else, as well. There seems to be a lot of perverse anger here. This was a very effective poem.

This section of poems also seems to possess no more than two characters. There is always a strange coupling in these poems, one that is not healthy or content. This makes for a disturbing (but good) poem. A lot of these poems take place in silence, as well. The poem I just shared is between mother and daughter, but told in the silence of the narrator's internal voice. There isn't any outward dialogue between the characters. There aren't any active scenes, but instead memories and recollections. "The Tenant Farmer" concerns the farmer himself and his woman. There is an uncomfortable silence between them as his mind rattles with internal dialogue, especially at the end of the poem.

Although these poems are very dark and disturbing, I have taken to them and they have taken to me. This explains, I think, the title poem "Cruelty", where there is a desire for something dangerous, with sharp teeth. Something that bites beack. These poems have very thin layers of skin. And lots of blood.

Lucille Clifton's "Good Woman"

In Lucille Clifton's poems, every word counts. Her poems are mere inkblots on the page, but how they move! All of these poems are on their knees, singing in their own distinct voices. Clifton takes on several voices and personae, all of which are believable and compassionate. I especially love the poems in which she takes on the voice of a male.

This may seem strange, but since I was a child, I have connected african american/black women with masculinity. Here are a few literary/pop-cultural examples: The Color Purple, "Corrina, Corrina", Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jazz...

I'm quite certain that this masculinity has a lot to do with the fact that the characters in these books/films are strong and determined. They have pushed men aside in one form or another, be it through quasi-lesbianism or plain 'ole rejection. Since her poems are quite short, I'll share some that I particularly loved. Of them all, I think this one may be my favorite:

joseph

something about this boy
has spelled my tongue
so even when my fingers tremble
on mary
my mouth cries only
jesus jesus jesus

*

In just six short lines, Clifton arouses all the senses but smell (unless you really envelop yourself into the poem and smell his spicy breath or her salty skin). But all those senses are there, nonetheless. And the movement is there, as well. The spelling of the tongue is a very interesting movement, I think. What a great phrase! It definitely works. But the trembling fingers and the movement of his mouth, I'm sure...is all very sacred. Like I said, these poems are on their knees. I love that. There is lot of spirituality in these poems.

Clifton also takes on a voice that is even higher than God in her poem "god's mood". In this poem, God is a fickle bastard, tired of his creation, kind of resembling Old Testament God. An excerpt:

he is tired of years that keep turning into age
and flesh that keeps widening.
he is tired of waiting for his teeth to
bite him and walk away.

he is tired of bone,
it breaks.
he is tired of eve's fancy
and adam's whining ways.

*

I especially love that final stanza. In my imagination, when I picture Adam & Eve, they are always portrait-still. Holding fruit. Naked or a little covered. There's a serpent. You know, the typical portraiture in which they are conveyed. They're a stagnant image. But that final stanza, for me, brings movement into their limbs. In my imagination, Eve is holding a branch, or pushing something aside to look at something beyond obstruction. She is wandering. She takes a step. Adam, he sits on a tree stump, his chin on his fist. His face is sour and twisted, he runs his hands through his touseled hair--a typical quirk when he gets pissy.

What a great poem.

What a great poem, I say. But I can't help but also ask, "Who is the narrator?" And knowing who the writer is--a woman, a black woman--I shift positions in my seat and smile a little. It is comforting, for a reason I can't really explain, to know it's Clifton.

Clifton writes about Kali, a goddess who stands on Shiva! She is fierce, black, and unstoppable. In Clifton's poem "she insists on me", the narrator (Clifton) fears being consumed by Kali or being entered by Kali. Here is the poem, since it isn't long.

she insists on me

i offer my
little sister up. no,
she says, no i want
you fat poet with
dead teeth. she insists
on me. my daughters
promise things, they
pretend to be me but
nothing fools her
nothing moves her and
i end up pleading
woman woman i am trying
to make a living here,
woman woman you are not
welcome in these bones,
woman woman please but she
walks past words and
insists on me.

*

This seems to be a twist on the idea of making a deal with the devil. The deal isn't made here, for there seems to be a surrendering. There is a moving at the end of the poem. A movement past the words, and how appropriate! Content and form, right there, moving past the words. She can easily be talking about poetry, right? Ars poetica? An unstoppable force is at work here and I like that there isn't exactly a resolution, but there is an idea as to where it may go.

I've read "homage to my hips" several times. It is one of her more well-known poems. When I was a teaching assistant as an undergrad, I used this poem as an example of a voice poem and I read it out-loud to the class in what I thought was an appropriate voice. Like hips, this poem has round qualities. These round qualities are in the sounds, particularly the vowels. And with the vowels, which are elongated and change frequency, comes attitude. Attitude also resonates when we finally encounter a hard consonant like in the phrase "petty places". You can almost spit at your enemies when saying it.

Gotta love it.

Circe & the Dead Man

Circe makes me think of sirens. "Circe" by Diann Blakely seems to bring in the siren myth, or so I think. Although, it is not song that draws the sailors to her, but familiarity, domesticity, and limitations. This connects very well, though, with the myth of Circe, a woman who turned men to swine. The men pursued something they desired (food) which she had tained, and therefore the men met their demise, becoming swine. the men in this poem adhere to all of Circe's rules for their own domestic comfort.

Poems about Circe al seem to be about men's desires. This line captures her persona ver well:

...If I wanted only to hold you

I would hold you prisoner.

*

Very nice.

I found Marvin Bell's "The Book of the Dead Man" very interesting. It was fascinating that Bell, instead of doing a persona poem of one figure, e uses one figure (the dead man) as a persona or comparison to another figure (Medusa). I looked onlineat other sections of this poem and realized that the dead man is very experimetal and curious with his own body. He is always testing his limbs and attempting to learn about himself. He seems isolated and suspended in time, like Medusa, or Medusa's stone. Here is an excerpt from section 3 entitled "About the Beginnings of the Dead Man".

He bends a knee that doesn't wish to bend, he raises an arm that
aruges with a soulder, e turns his head by throwing it
wildly to the side.
He envies the lobster the protective sleeves of its limbs.
He believes the jellyfish has it easy, floating, letting everything pass
through it.
He would like to be a starfish, admired for its shape long after.

*

Like Medusa, the Dead Man seems mythical and suspended in isolation. Not belonging or desirable.

Reading all these persona poems made me want to write a persona poem about the Garden of Eden. My boyfriend recently introduced me to this Josh Ritter song entitled "The Temptation of Adam". The revisioning that takes place in this ballad is very interesting. Here are the lyrics.

If this was the Cold War we could keep each other warm
I said on the first occasion that I met Marie
We were crawling through the hatch that was the missile silo door
And I don't think that she really thought that much of me

I never had to learn to love her like I learned to love the Bomb
She just came along and started to ignore me
But as we waited for the Big OneI started singing her my songs
And I think she started feeling something for me

We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside
What five letters spell "apocalypse" she asked me
I won her over saying "W.W.I.I.I."
She smiled and we both knew that she'd misjudged me

Oh Marie it was so easy to fall in love with you
It felt almost like a home of sorts or something
And you would keep the warhead missile silo good as new
And I'd watch you with my thumb above the button

Then one night you found me in my army issue cot
And you told me of your flash of inspiration
You said fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought
And all night long you drove me wild with your equations

Oh Marie do you remember all the time we used to take
We'd make our love and then ransack the rations
I think about you leaving now and the avalanche cascades
And my eyes get washed away in chain reactions

Oh Marie if you would stay then we could stick pins in the map
Of all the places where you thought that love would be found
But I would only need one pin to show where my heart's at
In a top secret location three hundred feet under the ground

We could hold each other close and stay up every night
Looking up into the dark like it's the night sky
And pretend this giant missile is an old oak tree instead
And carve our name in hearts into the warhead

Oh Marie there's something tells me things just won't work out above
That our love would live a half-life on the surface
So at night while you are sleepingI hold you closer just because
As our time grows short I get a little nervous

I think about the Big One, W.W.I.I.I.
Would we ever really care the world had ended
You could hold me here forever like you're holding me
look at that great big red button and I'm tempted

Beginning With O by Olga Broumas

Reading Broumas' book of poetry is an uprising. She is not someone you open up and read to swiftly pass the time. As I read her work, I felt I was anchoring grey matter. I also felt as if I were witnessing a naive child come to her demise, especially in her poems at the end of the book in the chapter entitled "Innocence". Ironically, it is through this uprising that the demise seems to gain potential.



Situations become disturbing when innocence is involved. Broumas' poetry is highly sexualized and naive. The interesting thing about her lines of poetry is that I feel like I create my own metaphor. Take this line, for example from "Cinderella"...



I am a woman in a state of siege, alone



as one piece of laundry, strung on a windy clothesline a

mile long.



This metaphor allows me to take the image given to me and create my own assumptions. Broumas creates an "unknown" in her poetry and it is very appropriate when it comes to writing a poem based on a fairytale. When reading a fairytale, I often feel that there is a queer or absurd aspect that I'm missing out on. Broumas creates that queer/absurd aspect but still my imagination is left to wonder and even worry. That line about the laundry on the mile-long clothesline brings new images into my mind. A woman being sexually abused. Passed from one man to the next whether he passes her forward or she passes herself. A woman left alone in a dark room. A woman standing on a corner, the sidewalks are wet. A carcass for all the predators to feast on at once.



Another interesting example is the poem "Rapunzel". When it comes to rendering this tale, ti seems typical that a woman poet would write along the lines of abuse or loss of innocence. A hurt child would be seen. Terror and pity would enter the reader's gut like a punch. But Broumas uses this opportunity to write a persona poem that reveals a yong woman who feels she shares something beautiful with an older woman. I loved this part:



...Every hair



on my skin curled up, my spine

an enraptured circuit, a loop of memory, your first

private touch.



There is a lot of lesbian-imagery in her poems. I can't help but think about Humbert Humbert and Lolita. how Lolita, for some parts of the novel, seemed to not mind the sexual advances. She seemed to even blossom through them.

I enjoyed Broumas' craft. Her use of the fairy tale in her poetry differs much from Sexton's. When Sexton seemed to use fairy tales as a reflection of abuse and loss of innocence, Broumas' poetry is an uprising and defense for desire, even if that desire seems taboo.

Ed Ochester & Jan Beatty

Ed Ochester is living.

That was the thought that often crossed my mind while reading his book Unreconstructed. That doesn't mean that I think he is some thrill-seeker that eats animal testicles, jumps off high cliffs, and never sleeps. It means that I know he is human. That he worries his loose tooth with his tongue, that his cat watches his testicles as they float in the tub water, that he had a little infant son who sang. His poetry somewhat reminds me of Charles Bukowski--although I don't see Ochester as a womanizing drunk--in that simple, beautiful moments in life are captured...be it while roofing a house, listening to a bitching wife, thinking about Joyce, or (my absolute favorite) watching a blind child eat crocus. I liked the poem so much, I'll share it here:

APRIL, NEAR THE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND

I come up to

a column of blind children,

two by two, holding hands,

led by their teacher,

out for a walk in the sun

and four have fallen behind,

stalled at a garden where one

has picked a crocus and

is tearing at it with his teeth,

tasting crocus, delicately,

chewing and tasting, and

the teacher halts the group

and runs back to yell

what are you doing?

will you please

tell me what you're doing?

*

I have a passion for the senses. I adore the sensuist writers/scholars such as Diane Ackerman. Also, this poem is very useful for my thesis where one of my major focuses is the act of "stopping" or "pausing". Poetry itself embodies the act of stopping to pay attention to it, but I like going a bit deeper than that by actually embodying the act much like how this poem does. Not only is the narrator of this poem pausing to observe these blind children, but the poem itself is about pausing. The children pause (or stalled) and are thus left behind, almost in a different world. One child consumes the crocus, for he is sensing the essence of the crocus since he cannot experience it through sight. He also, perhaps, experiences it more intensely through his other senses (like taste!). And how I love the ending where the idea that this child is in another world is even more noticeable, for the teacher is appalled and questioning much like how we question why dogs, if they have such a great sense of smell, must get so up-close and personal with disgusting things. Right? I loved this poem.

Ed Ochester also reminds me of the former poet laureate, Robert Hass. I suppose it is because of his ability to walk on the ground in his poems, but capture ideas that are not on the ground. Another reason Ochester reminds me of Hass is the solitude in these poems. In most of these poems, the narrator is very hermit, but peaceful. Some poems speak to a specific person, be them friends or long-dead poets like Basho, the "father" of the Haiku. Basho was a wandering hermit, as well. Both Basho and Ochester have in common that they prefer their solitude, but at the same time, they are not alone. Ochester writes in "Poem for Basho", "How one of the pleasures/of silence is finally/returning to your friends."

The format and technique used in this poem is very important, as well. It is divided into small haiku-looking stanzas (I did not research it, but perhaps Ochester did write this poem in a form that is related to the haiku, like the hokku or waka) that capture small moments. The "point" of a complete haiku is to capture a small, brilliant moment. The first line, supposedly, must contain the subject of the poem. The second line must contain action, and the third line must tie everything up in a tight, amazing conclusion. Typically, in ancient Japanese haiku, the theme revolved around nature. But rules are meant for breaking and changing, I suppose.

I'm sure that what most people noticed about Ochester's poetry is all the pop-cultural references he uses. These references are further proof that Ochester treads on the same ground we do. And literally! He writes about Apollo and Leechburg which are towns adjacent to where I lived! I was in Leechburg today, as a matter of fact. It's nice to see a local "Pittsburgh" poet not just write about the big city for once, but the spindly, in-the-middle-of-nowhere towns that a lot of us can relate to.

There is a poem in here that I love, and maybe Ochester (or his editor) loves, for it is at the very end of the book. The poem also relates to our class, for he is speaking to Shiva's son Ganesha, the Hindu god of Good Fortune and wisdom. I like the parallels in this poem, between the narrator and Ganesh. There is the image of one-tusked Ganesh with is missing tusk and there's the image of Ochester, worrying his loose tooth while driving away from Birmingham. There is also the image of rice repeated between the two of them in their separate worlds. The final line in the poem: "oh cripple and fool and holy one" confuses me in a way that feels right. Is the narrator calling himself these words or is he still talking to Ganesh? Interesting.

Jan Beatty's poetry is very physical. I love the poem "Red Sugar" and how motivated it is by body-fluidity--like there is some serum inside us that makes us move, decide, and live. The poem itself is fluid just the same. And she gave this serum such a good name...red sugar...sweet, but you still cannot help but think of some special blood. It is very sexy. I loved this excerpt:

...I heard it once

when I was waitressing, something

made me turn my head, made me

swivel to look at a woman across

the room, wasn't even my station,

but the red sugar said, go.

This poem in a way fits in with the theme of our class, if you stretch it a bit. Beatty invents this body-molasses that makes our decisions and weighs like ocean-water on our plans and thoughts. It is like she is inventing a myth for us to follow. It seems child-like in a way, like this red sugar is something her mother might have warned her about or told her stories about. It almost seems like an imaginary friend, as well. There is a very disturbing quality to it. I like it.

Her poem "The Day I Stripped" is also very good. It is yet another sexy and dark poem that enters the fantasy and consciousness of a young woman, yet again. When reading this poem, I felt I was becoming her, which is a very interesting technique. In this poem, the narrator feels she is becoming a stripper, but realizes that she is not through the intrusion of an outside character. I am going through the same scenario when I read this poem. I feel I am becoming the narrator, but the narrator eventually reminds me that I am not her. I was so drawn into the poem, that I was stripping my own identity.

I like the disappointment there.

Anne Sexton's "Transformations"

I felt a bit betrayed by this book. When I thought Sexton would be literally reinventing the fairytales, she was just retelling most of them in a poetic format. Quite a few times, she'll add in a few biting quipps that emphasize her sarcastic voice, humor, and wit that she's so well-known for. I read this book side-by-side the fairytales told by the Grimm brothers. It almost seemed as if Sexton read the fairytale and wrote the poem in the duration of one cup of coffee. Don't get me wrong! I like Sexton a lot. Here is one of my favorite love poems by her, actually, that a loved one recently brought to my attention:

Us

I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed
your feet dry with a towel
because I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!

Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o'clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.

*

But I do enjoy several aspects about this book. Like I already mentioned, I like the humor she instills within these poems. There is often a sense of urgency and impatience in these poems. And since these poems are supposed to be fairytales, it makes me wonder about this urgency. I wonder...is she impatient to tell the story or to write the poem? Or both? Sometimes she seems annoyed by the protagonists she must write about in this book. Especially the women, who in fairytales are always damsels in distress. I can only imagine that this is a huge turn-off for Sexton. So with her big, bold voice, she'll be critical or mocking of these princesses and damsels (daughters!) in distress. Here is an example of Sexton's impatience within the poem "Rumpelstiltskin".

The king married her
and within a year
a son was born.
He was like most new babies,
as ugly as an artichoke
but the queen thought him a pearl.
She gave him her dumb lactation,
delicate, trembling, hidden,
warm, etc.
*

Not only does the syntax of the poem make the poem seem rushed, but so does the sarcasm and the use of the "etc" at the end. The syntactical rush comes from the use of all the commas to create a laundry-list of domesticity that Sexton does not seem to want to humor. She claims that babies are typically ugly and creates potential commentary by stating that of course the queen thought the ugly baby to be a pearl. It's very interesting and I think her technique is very...her.

There are several examples of Sexton mocking the happy-go-lucky endings of these fairytales. For instance, in the poem "The White Snake", when the man wins the princess' love and charm, and are bound to live happily ever after, Sexton writes, "They played house, little charmers,/exceptionally well." And she ends the poem with an image of this happy couple boxed away like some sweet Christmas package as if stilling them within time. But Sexton makes it a bit more dismal because she can and writes, "...living happily ever after--/a kind of coffin,/a kind of blue funk./Is it not?"Sexton ends her poems not with periods, but with a smash of her cigarette butt.

And Sexton was also very impatient with the princess in "Rumpelstiltskin" who could not for the life of her spin straw into gold. Sexton writes, "Poor grape with no one to pick./Luscious and round and sleek./Poor thing./To die and never see Brooklyn." It's hilarious, right? The little tart princess is belittled by Sexton. She despises how the princess cries. She writes, "She wept,/of course, huge aquamarine tears." Sexton mixes beautiful images with sarcastic humor in order to belittle the princess. The "of course" is her left hook and the "aquamarine" is Sexton playing along with the overly-exaggerated language often used in fairytales.

Another interesting aspect of all these poems is that they are told much like fairytales. In the beginning of each poem is Sexton's complete and utter voice. The story is not yet begun, but she's giving a little prologue concerning what is bound to happen in the fairytale that will ensue. Some are a bit confusing and some are very dismal. The most dismal is in the final poem of the book, "Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)". I will quote just a small portion of this prologue that in my opinion emphasises the darkness that Sexton wants to portray in this specific fairytale:

Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as honeysuckle.

*

Dark, isn't it? Of course, of all the poems in _Transformations_, this specific poem least follows the actual fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. These prologues to all of these poems are what interest me the most considering the rest of the poems are just the fairytales retold with a few "asides" from the poet herself. But that's just my opinion.

I would like to read more of Anne Sexton, of course. I heard that her book of love poems were especially good, so I'll have to check them out.