Reading Response Entry 1 (Week 8)

This is a response to one of the poems in Chapter Three of Writing Poetry, called "Cinderelly, Cinderelly."

I didn't resort to ribbon tying and la la la's
Just for the family atmosphere
And free cheese, sons. It was pure,
Calculated, gleaming opportunity.
No one can ignore a blonde on her knees,
And wherever pity took her, I'd follow,
Riding on apron ties or fairy dust or
Whatever it took.


I was a self made steed.
It was genius, my lustrous coat,
Power, high hooves, and silver fittings,
Pulling a pumpkin, as it were, but that pumpkin
Was plush velvet and gold, sons, and 
I was a stallion

Until midnight. That godmother was a flake,
And fat, and I didn't don that hat 
And doting smile
To get pushed aside,
Just a rat forgotten
After a perverse post menopausal whim.
Bitter, you say? Look at me, sons,
Dying in a drawing room filled
With cat hair and torn garters,
While Mrs Charming's maids 
Tighten gilded corsets over stretch marks

And set death traps in the kitchens
For the pesky little mice that
Pester their sweet mistress so.


The reason I felt like writing about this poem, was because of the unfamiliarity, freshness of the poem. The narrator is one which we haven't heard from before and the language itself is exactly like the book was trying to explain: it is natural. The whole point is to write the way that the speaker would talk, and to avoid the "extra." I love how the text captured the bitter, sort of melancholy tone of the mouse, all the while adding to the character. The reader got to take a peek into what the speaker was feeling, by writing in a way that this would be clear. This is something that I want to do: I want to make it clear, but magical in a sense.