We’ve searched high and low and under every fiddlehead fern to bring you a Fairy Tale & Fantasy Playlist and Prompt sure to bring fantastical stories to life. Listen along and journey with us to the kingdom of make-believe.
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s an inspired fortune cookie poem from Maureen we enjoyed:
A metaphor could save your life,
so let your imagination wander
next time you have the opportunity.
Affirm it, visualize it, believe it
when I tell you everything now
will come your way—
darkness when there is no light
at the end of the tunnel
a moment of awkwardness
in a Chinese bakery
an unexpected relationship
with an alien of some sort
whose fortune us as sweet
as a cookie you never tried before.
There are no shortcuts to any place
worth going. No matter what
your past has been, face facts
with dignity. Smile,
and order takeout. Otherwise,
nothing will change and you will
be hungry soon. Until you stop trying
you can’t naturally feel upbeat.
If you want the rainbow,
go confidently in the direction
of rain. The last thing you want
is to upset the penguin today
if the love of your life is sitting
across from you. Be prepared.
The only true adventure,
the important thing, is working out
the kinks. Better to be the head
of a chicken than the tail of an ox.
But word to the wise:
It never pays to kick a skunk
even if life is dance floor.
POETRY PROMPT: Think of a familiar fairy tale. Create a poem from the perspective of one of the characters.
Photo by David’s Imperfect Fantasy. Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Heather Eure.
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Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!
Browse more Playlists
Browse more Poems
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Maureen Doallas says
Thank you for showcasing the poem.
Wonderful prompt!
Megan Willome says
Maureen, I love this! Especially these lines: “If you want the rainbow, /
go confidently in the direction /
of rain.” I wish that were inside a fortune cookie.
Maureen Doallas says
Thank you, Megan!
Maureen Doallas says
I wrote this prose poem way back in 2011 but I’m sure there are many visiting here who haven’t seen it. My only and I used to act out the fairy tales we’d read aloud, Billy Goats Gruff being a favorite, along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are.
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Where the Wild Things Are
is what we’d dream of when we tired of acting like trolls under bridges or bristly wolves wearing sheeps’ skins while blowing down doors of poorly built straw houses. In our island lair (a bed and blankets made do), we didn’t have to look out for Little Briar-Rose or hide from The Robber Bridegroom or worry that the Devil with the Three Golden Hairs would come looking for us. We didn’t have to sit with some Old Beggar-Woman while she told Stores About Snakes or conjured tales about The Girl Without Hands or made us use The Crystal Ball to mine her fortunes or solve The Riddle of who should marry the poor innkeeper’s daughter. Those story-telling brothers, being ever Grimm, always made us eager for a wild rumpus to start. We liked being stranded, if only just before sleep, allowed to gnash our teeth in a place where we could be owner of this world, or sail off through night and day and still have time enough to practice powers that could slip through cracks, re-crack, and make any part of our kingdom that was not so good someplace better. Where the Wild Things Are, we could be a king and not have to talk to stupid owls, get mad and eat anyone we pleased — plans or no plans. Sadly, we sometimes couldn’t keep out the sadness, not even with an ice cream parlor, not even with a trampoline at the bottom of a swimming pool, not even with chicken soup and rice we’d stir and sip but once or twice. So, when things got too heavy, the shield against sadness too small to make us forget that having everything doesn’t protect us from the terrible roars let loose when love goes missing, we’d pull out our Goodnight Moon and, looking all around our room, whisper our quiet goodnight noises everywhere.
Maureen Doallas says
typo correction:
… told Stories About Snakes
Richard Maxson says
This is precious, Maureen. All the allusions add so much, because they are like boosters to the story you tell. The way you end this is so poignant.
Simply Darlene says
I agree, Richard. I don’t read other comments until I’ve plunked mine out. Looks like we’re both keen on the ending. 🙂
Simply Darlene says
Maureen, how you transition from “roars let loose when love goes missing” to “whisper our quiet goodnight noises everywhere” – slows the tempo of the whole piece and invites an exhale. I like it very much.
Sandra Heska King says
My favorite…
There are no shortcuts to any place
worth going. No matter what
your past has been, face facts
with dignity. Smile,
and order takeout.
Elizabeth Marshall says
If the love of your life is sitting across from you be prepared.
don’t we have fun here with all these crazy shenanigans.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Your second piece makes my eyes want to flood the page. But I insisted they be brave and strong, like Maureen as I held out the promise of two goodnight stories, if they promised not to weep, on this Monday, wet and washed in every shade of grey.
Sigh…
Richard Maxson says
From notes by Martin Gardner in the Annotated Alice.
In the original manuscript of Wonderland, entitled,
Alice’s Adventures Underground, the caucus race
did not appear. My variation on a fairy tale stems from
this cast off original title.
“Carroll may have intended his caucus-race used in
Wonderland to symbolize the fact that caucus committee
members do a lot of running around in circles, getting nowhere.”
Alice Goes Underground
…the winding of string we are leads nowhere.
The first end, buried deep in the wound
and circling years, is what we seek—
the true beginning—before gathering
shaped us, and our tale evaporated
in the telling of it, into scattered pinwheels
waiting for the wind to turn them, the way
it moves the grass, or how water moving
in the sun gathers the light into color.
Begin with the heat on your back; the sun
bleached the sand white you thought,
dry and fine for the crabs pulling
at netting fragments. Mother warned
it was too soft, too hot except for the caucus
of claws dragging the decaying netting
into the hole, into the small darkness floating
in the bright sand, where, you thought to go—
Follow the strand dragging behind them,
as they disappear deep into the dark wound.
You are a child then, all things are possible;
you don’t think…
Magdalena Ball says
Richard, this piece is excellent. Firstly, Alice in Wonderland, though perhaps not quite a fairy tale, is an evocative reference in and of itself (Silverbirch Press was calling for Alice pieces and this would be perfect for it, but unfortunately the deadline was Dec), and I love you how’ve started with Gardner’s notes – just a bit left of the text itself. Then the whole circular progression through time and space that is almost mathematical (though chaos driven). It seems to follow the narrative of AIW, while still evoking a universal theme of aging, and how we struggle to make our lives meaningful. I’m sure Carroll would appreciate this.
Magdalena Ball says
Great prompt! So glad I stumbled in here. This one is a riff on the Indonesian fairy tale “Bawang Merah Bawang Putih” which is not entirely dissimilar to Cinderella.
Shallots and Garlic
Every now and then
when the moon is so full it glows green
the wind might howl a lullaby
from another atmosphere.
Then you’ll take me by the hand
tell me I’m diligent
show me what to do, and I’ll do it
with grace, humility and well.
You’ll tell me I’m Garlic, the good girl
heady with the pleasure of service.
But mostly the sky is moonless
no breeze moves the air
you’ll know me as Shallots
lazy, sloppy
the ugly sister
I know what I’ve lost.
Instead of cleaning I’ll howl
my dark side out
like a pumpkin full of vipers.
My eyes won’t touch the earth
chin too high to kiss.
I’ll eat the world and spit it out
licking hungry chops
leaving no bones.
Richard Maxson says
I like this version better than Cinderella, and you spin it so well here. There is a real edginess, a little more than just a slipper not fitting.
Love the sinister ending.
Sandra Heska King says
We’re glad you “stumbled” in here, too, Magdalena. Welcome! Have you checked out the Mischief Cafe? There’ll be a new menu up any minute. 🙂
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/mischief-cafe/
Richard Maxson says
This is one I posted several months ago under Doors and Passageways. Seems even more appropriate here:
Hansel Alone
The rain-rippled clay
streets are now paved.
A timber trail at the wood’s edge is gone,
where once a sand path began
its turn into the thick needles,
like a dry throat catching its breath.
Beyond, a sweeter voice beckoned then
from the sway of yellow pines,
to the crooked fingers
of oaks with their moss shawls.
I am lost in these streets,
and wanting to be lost
in those woods again.
From my car I stare at the houses,
the signs that must be wrong.
No sinister palmetto thicket
remains behind the yards,
along the dark canal,
no path back from where I came.
I turn toward town,
remembering the way bicycles
bounced us like jackhammers,
on the waves of ridges,
making chants from our laughing vowels.
The trees that remain—consolations.
My drawbridge gone for a span too high
to drop a line, no bulkhead for the pelicans
to rest from their weary circling,
bellies full of crumbs.
Glynn says
The first book I can remember my mother reading to me was Grimm’s Fairy Tales (and I still have the book she read from).
Straw into gold
Can you spin
straw into gold,
straw into gold, a boast
becomes a lie, a lie
becomes a request,
becomes a promise,
becomes an agony
the tales we spin
golden
the straw we spin
golden, or not
watching as he spins
madly, the wheel turning,
a game of roulette played
and forgotten until
the croupier demands his due
unless the name is forthcoming
unless the name is known and spoken
speaking the name dispels enchantment
naming the one breaks the hold
just a name, spinning fool’s gold
back to straw
Richard Maxson says
A nice turn on Rumpelstiltskin, Glynn.
Elizabeth Marshall says
Southern Cinderella Circa 2015
Ya’ll
This blended family gig is rough, I mean
Match dot com is looking up, for my ticket
Out of here
Diva one and diva two, girl, they are mean
Leaving me home to Swifter and clean
Ya’ll I am taking out an ad in Farmers Only
I’m so sad, so lonely. Poor ole pitiful me
My life reads like a song on the top 40, Country chart, girl please
All work and no play, leaves this girl
Changing her name on Instagram
@allwaysabridesmaid, single
Doesn’t begin to describe, my solo life a Total deadend, friend
Chinese take out, every night, pretty shabby
My new BFF, Netflix, alright
Not every, on Sunday’s it is Downton Abbey
Ya’ll if my prince charming doesn’t show up And save me
Wisk me away soon
This girl’s headed to the local saloon
AKA the corner bar
To drown my sorrows in a glass of warm milk
Or something a bit stronger
And if that dang shoe doesn’t fit
I’m not holding out on this fairtale any more
Ya’ll, I’m joining the bloody Peace Corp
gassingon says
The fairy came from nowhere
so sweet and pretty too
waving a wand and smiling
lets hope my wishes come true..