for the record, this poetry stuff is HARD

So, I’ve got a story that wants to be told as a poem.*

Now, I’m a bad poet. We’ve established this over the years. No matter, the story still wants to be told as a poem.

*muttering*

All right then, I’m writing the story as a poem. It’s difficult. Not just because I have to figure out how the story goes–that’s usually the case–but because I’m stripping all the words away that I can, I’m articulating a skeleton. No, more: this is meant to be complete and alive in itself, not simply the armature. Stripping away might be the wrong way for me to look at it.

Maybe I should consider it an exercise in elegance.

Argh.

And never mind that it’s free verse. It might be free, but it ain’t cheap.

I feel like pretentiousness is almost unavoidable, and that cliché is waiting for me like a mugger with a cosh.

If I could write this story as prose, I would. But it’s a singular voice, and she wants her story told in verse.

This story is part of my ongoing engagement with fairy tales, which I only recently realized that I have. (Okay, sometimes I’m a little oblivious.) It’s also part of my ongoing engagement with trans themes and characters. (That part was obvious from the moment the Queen decided to speak up.)

Here’s hoping it all turns out right.

*Personally, I blame tithenai and Paul Park and popelizbet.