Mrs. Ducket's Adventure

[Stockton's] most famous fable, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" (1882), is about a man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter.

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday! I am continuing with my National Poetry Month project, writing poems inspired by short stories. I lucked out the first two weeks because it didn't take me long to find stories that I wanted to write about. This week, however, I read a bunch of stories that fell flat. Finally I happened upon The Widow's Cruise by Frank Stockton. Stockton wrote a juicy part for a woman, which I appreciated :)

Winslow Homer's A Fisher Girl on Beach

In "The Widow's Cruise," four elderly sailors stop by the Widow Ducket's house for dinner and a rest stop on their way down the coast. After dinner, they take turns telling stories. The Widow Ducket has asked for true stories, but the sailors tell one fantastical tale after another. Once they are done, she asks if she can share a story of her own. Hers is the most outlandish of them all, causing the men many a yawp of surprise. ("Madam!" exclaimed Captain Bird, and the other elderly mariners took their pipes from their mouths.") The Widow Ducket may have been annoyed with the men for stretching the truth in her own house after she had fed them so well, but in the end, she felt like she evened the score.

My poem for "The Widow's Cruise" is a retelling of her tall tale, as it needs no embellishment from me.

Mrs. Ducket's Adventure

As Mrs. Ducket had oil and love for lit lamps and safe husbands,
when her sister-in-law had a dry lamp and a dark window,
Mrs. Ducket set off to cross the bay. She had no oars or sailing
knowledge, just a rudder and her own hands to spin it.

She was spinning her way along the water when a mighty storm
rose before her and behind her and crashed into itself atop of her,
so she poured a bit of oil on the water and calmed it like a mother hen
getting an angry chick to unruffle its feathers. Smooth the bay was then,
in a boat-shaped space.

Mrs. Ducket looked down, calculating that the oil could not flatten
a path across the bay and still light the dry lamp. Below her,
she spied a crack in the boat's bottom. The water underneath
-- while full of sharks -- was calm. Placid enough to walk across,
drawing air from her oil tin? She thought about it, until she
abandoned the plan for fear of running into vicious turtles.

Maybe electricity would do the trick. Mrs. Ducket rubbed the soles
of her shoes back and forth on a dusty seat until she fairly crackled
with electricity. Fully charged, she swam through the storm to shore,
buoyant with current. She might not have even needed oil to light
the lamp at journey's end with all the sparks she ferried.

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My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Heidi!

2024 Progressive Poem

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hi y'all! The 2024 Progressive Poem is here for Day #18. I think this might be my 12th time contributing? Is that possible? Wow. Anyway, I think this might be the hardest. I was befuddled by what is happening. Are our kids alone, no parents? There are so many bad things that could happen to them. I didn't want to make it take a dark turn, so I had to rein in my imagination a lot. My addition is at the bottom, bolded.

cradled in stars, our planet sleeps,
clinging to tender dreams of peace
sister moon watches from afar,
singing lunar lullabies of hope.

almost dawn, I walk with others,
keeping close, my little brother.
hand in hand, we carry courage
escaping closer to the border

My feet are lightning;
My heart is thunder.
Our pace draws us closer
to a new land of wonder.

I bristle against rough brush—
poppies ahead brighten the browns.
Morning light won’t stay away—
hearts jump at every sound.

I hum my own little song
like ripples in a stream
Humming Mami’s lullaby
reminds me I have her letter

My fingers linger on well-worn creases,
shielding an address, a name, a promise–
Sister Moon will find always us
surrounding us with beams of kindness

But last night as we rested in the dusty field,
worries crept in about matters back home.
I huddled close to my brother. Tears revealed
the no-choice need to escape. I feel grown.

Leaving all I’ve ever known
the tender, heavy, harsh of home.
On to maybes, on to dreams,
on to whispers we hope could be.

But I don't want to whisper! I squeeze Manu's hand.
"¡Más cerca ahora!" Our feet pound the sand.
We race, we pant, we lean on each other
I open my canteen and drink gratefully

Catherine at Reading to the Core is next!

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April 1 Patricia Franz at Reverie

The Monteverdi Choir

There’s very little artifice in Monteverdi’s music. It’s his own blood directly on the page.
~Robert Hollingsworth

For Music Monday, the Monteverdi Choir with Claudio Monteverdi's Domine ne in furore tuo and Francis Poulenc's Figure humaine, FP 120 - 5. Riant du ciel et des planètes.

In 1943 [Poulenc] wrote a cantata for unaccompanied double choir intended for Belgium, Figure humaine, setting eight of Éluard's poems. The work, ending with "Liberté", could not be given in France while the Germans were in control; its first performance was broadcast from a BBC studio in London in March 1945, and it was not sung in Paris until 1947.

Changelings

The reason for abducting the human child varies as well: to reinforce the fairy stock, for love of their beauty, or to pay the Devil.
~Austin Harvey

Take the Fair Face of Woman,
and Gently Suspending,
With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending,
Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things
painted by Sophie Gengembre Anderson
(title from from a verse by Charles Ede)

Happy Poetry Friday! For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by short stories. To be honest, it's an even more compelling project than I anticipated! It's got its challenges, for sure, but the stories are so interesting and they send me in all kinds of directions.

Today's poem was inspired by Irish folktale "The Changeling," collected by Lady Wilde (Oscar Wilde's mother). In it, a woman sees two people (a man of undetermined age and an old woman) come into her cottage late at night. They warm themselves by the fire and then approach her baby in his cradle, whereupon she faints.

When she comes to, she sends her husband to deal with them. He chases them out, and then lights a candle. When they look at the baby's cradle, they see their baby has been swapped for an unattractive (but cheerful) baby. They are weeping and wailing about it when a young woman comes in and asks what the problem is.

The husband tells her the story and she looks at the baby and laughs, because she is a fairy and it is the child who was stolen from her that very evening. She says that she would rather have her own ugly baby than any mortal child, so she takes him and tells the couple how to get their child back.

They need to go to the old fort on the hill (during a full moon, naturally) and burn some sheafs of corn, threatening to burn down the fort. The fairies can't deal with fire and will give the baby back. The fairy advises that, for his safety, they tie a nail from a horseshoe around the baby's neck after they get him back.

The husband goes to the old fort and follows the fairy's directions, which work. The last advice the husband is given is to draw a circle of fire with a hot coal around the baby's cradle when he gets home. (Fairies really can't stand fire, but the first fairies who stole the baby did seem to warm themselves by it. Maybe they just can't cross it?)

Anyway, the husband goes home, the fairy's fort is still standing, and they live peacefully from then on. "The man would allow no hand to move a stone or harm a tree, and the fairies still dance there on the rath, when the moon is full, to the music of the fairy pipes, and no one hinders them."

My poem:

Changeling

Fairies walk like the tinkle of wind chimes,
their wings guiding them through the world
like a hand on the back of a dancer,

so no human would expect a fairy's baby to be ugly,
not that the humans had given a moment's thought
to the fairy babies, far away under the hill,
when humans had their own concerns
and their own baby, so new and pink and tight and perfect,
sleeping quiet as a hiding hare,

silent, even when the strangers entered the cabin,
brazen as you please, and sat by the fire.
Once, twice, three times, the baby's desperate mother
tried to send them away, but magic weighed her down
like a blanket, left her flush with angry sleep.

By the time she had come to herself,
her husband was chasing the crone away
and some other baby had his hairy knuckles
wrapped around the top of the wooden crib.

When he gave them a startling grin and held his arms up,
they screamed and sobbed, only too relieved to give him
to his mother-fairy when she came knocking.

If the exchange had gone differently,
if fairy babies were more sleek than unsightly,
would they have cocked their heads
and marveled that their baby was more beautiful
than they remembered,
bewildered,
but pleased?

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I wrote my poem thinking about how the fairy mother, who loved her child, would have appreciated them taking good care of her son while they had him but would they have if she hadn't shown up? (And the flipside of that: Would they have wanted to keep the fairy baby if it had been handsome?)

I read this sad article after writing my poem. Not sure how it would have affected me if I had read it beforehand.

Jone Rush MacCulloch has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jone!

Valkyries

Valkyries, ride over the battlefield
I'm dying and glad to bleed
Because I know today I will take my place with the heroes
In Valhalla of old
~Richard Wagner

Happy Art Thursday! Have you watched the Marvel movies with valkyries in them? I did, but I can't remember what they said about what valkyries are/do. From what I've just read, in Norse mythology valkyries escort the battle-dead to Valhalla (Odin's realm) or Fólkvangr (Freyja's realm). The goddess Freyja seems like the original valkyrie, which means "one who chooses the slain." Some sites say that valkyries choose which slain soldiers to bring to Odin or Freyja and others say they choose who will die in a battle, which seems like a bigger deal to me. Valhalla is the realm that we hear about, so valkyries are often portrayed bringing fallen soldiers to Valhalla.

A valkyrie speaks with a raven (1862)
woodcut engraved by Joseph Swain from art by Frederick Sandys

Valkyries carrying the battle-dead to Valhöll
Johannes Gehrts (1855–1921)

The Rhinegold and the Valkryie
Arthur Rackham

Ride of the Valkyries:

A little spark

Take a little spark
From a battery
Electricity
And put me back together
~Nothing but Thieves

Rusty Machine by darkday

For Music Monday, Hozier with "Eat Your Young" and Nothing but Thieves with "Broken Machine."

Hozier's song comes from an album he wrote during the pandemic when he was thinking about Dante's Inferno. Hozier:

[Dante's Inferno] is a poem about a person who's wandering through this sort of underworld space, and in each Circle [of Hell], they meet with a new person who shares their grievance, their pain, their experience. That was something I allowed myself to play with a little bit — that each song starts with my voice, but it allows into itself and the license to just let the song grow to where it needs to be.

Federigo's Falcon

There is too little courtship in the world.
~Vernon Lee

Happy National Poetry Month! I am delighted to be celebrating poetry with you. My project this year features poems inspired by short stories.

The inspiration for today's poem was "Federigo's Falcon" by Giovanni Boccaccio (circa 1353).

In it, a young man named Federigo falls deeply in love with a woman named Monna Giovanna. I can't tell if she was already married or if she married after Federigo tried to win her heart, but he doesn't get anywhere with her even though he tries everything and spends all his money doing it.

Federigo winds up leaving the city, nearly broke, and hanging out on his farm with his falcon. Eventually, Monna Giovanna comes with her son to live on a neighboring farm after her husband dies. Her son is interested in Federigo's falcon and, when he falls ill, asks his mom to see if Federigo will give him the falcon.

Monna Giovanna doesn't want to ask for the falcon but as she thinks it might help her son recover, she goes to visit Federigo. He doesn't know the reason she has come and is thrilled. With no other suitable food to give her, he arranges for his falcon to be cooked for her supper. She discovers after dinner that she isn't going to be able to bring his falcon to her son after all. Her son tragically passes away and Monna goes back to the city.

When her brothers start encouraging her to remarry, she tells them that the only person she would consider marrying is Federigo. She explains, "I would rather have a man who needs money than money that needs a man." What luck for Federigo! He "lived with her happily the rest of his days."

Aplomado Falcon, U.S. Govt, 1859

My "Federigo's Falcon" poem:

Federigo on how to woo a woman

If you encounter a woman without whom
the world is an endless eclipse,
offer her everything. If you have four flowers,
offer her five and coax one more to grow.
If you have a carriage, cover the seats
with the softest blankets, hitch it to your
calmest horses. If you have a castle,
circle the moat teaching the alligators
that she is sacrosanct or send them away.
What use is a castle if she cannot enter?
If you have anything, offer it:
your time, your patience, your riches,
your poverty, your surprise, your
last friend.

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Addendum: I'd like to add "Federigo" to the title of my poem. "Federigo's advice about How to woo a woman"? "How to woo a woman according to Federigo"? Suggestions welcome.

Great, thank you, Irene! I changed it to your suggestion. xo

Poems from short stories:
* Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes inspired by "The White Haired Girl" by Gorky
* Her Kind by Anne Sexton, maybe inspired by Hans Christian Anderson (need more info!)
* If I Could Write Like Poe inspired by "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe
* Scheherazade inspired by "The Thousand and One Nights" (various)
* The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy inspired by "The Ambuscade" by Stephen Crane
* Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson inspired by Homer's The Odyssey

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Live Your Poem has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Irene!