No Fairy Godmothers by Guest Blogger Sandy Longhorn

Today’s guest blogger is poet Sandy Longhorn, and you can read “Midwest Nursery Tales,” “Fairy Tale for Girls Enthralled by the Storm,” and more at her poetry feature here! You’ll find more of her “process notes” on writing poetry at her blog, here. Art by Dan-Ah Kim.

Let us know what you think about fairy tales in poetry and as coming-of-age or cautionary tales. Have you been shocked to read grim Grimm versions after seeing the Disney versions? What transformations of folk or fairy tales in art or literature have moved you?

THERE ARE NO FAIRY GODMOTHERS ON THE PRAIRIE
A Guest Post for Escape Into Life ~ Sandy Longhorn

Creating a series of poems that told new fairy tales from the Midwest was not something that I set out consciously to do. Doing a little backtracking in my files, “Midwest Nursery Tales” was the poem that led to the series. In a blog post on 19 February 2010,  I noted that I was inspired by Mary Biddinger’s book Prairie Fever. Although not a book of fairy tales, I was impressed with the way Biddinger presented some of the darker undertones of living in the Midwest. Another book that served as inspiration along the way was Rachel Contreni Flynn’s Tongue. Again, not a book of overt fairy tales, but one that uses some of the same dark undertones in coming of age poems.

Once I had drafted the initial poem, the idea of fairy tales took hold of my imagination and I became, frankly, obsessed. I went back and read several of the iconic fairy tales as presented by the Brothers Grimm, and while I’d known about the violence they contained, it was still a shock to read the non-Disneyfied versions. Also, while other writers and artists have retold traditional fairy tales many times over, I wanted to say something new, to capture my Midwestern reality, a reality built on self-reliance and a demanding landscape. I came of age during the farm crisis of the 1980s, and I learned early that there are no fairy godmothers on the prairie, no magic spells to save the day.

As I began to weave my tales, I left out the fairy godmothers and focused instead on the idea of transformation that is so prevalent in most fairy tales. However, instead of a magic wand, the girls in my tales are often transformed by the weather, the land, and the industry around them. The main character of each poem is always a girl, as the Midwest of my reality was soaked in the masculine labor of agriculture. And perhaps this is why I embraced the fairy tale form but wanted to make it new. In the Disney fairy tales of my youth, the girls were molded to fit a feminine ideal: soft beauty, a pretty singing voice, and of course, being vulnerable to the evil step-mother or witch. In my formative years, none of these traits were reinforced by the life I saw all around me. To show a vulnerability would be to invite disaster into the house. Instead, male or female, children needed to be able to stand in the face of disaster and plow through. Tenacity and perseverance, those were the traits rewarded in those around me.

The idea of fairy tales as cautionary tales meant to impart some moral lesson is at the heart of my obsession with writing these Midwestern fairy tales. We are, if nothing, a cautious group, careful not to shine too bright a light on our achievements and always on guard for the next disaster.

Sandy Longhorn is the author of Blood Almanac (Anhinga Press, 2006), which won the 2005 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, judged by Reginald Shepherd. Her work appears in Anti-, The Dirty Napkin, Lake Effect, New Madrid, Redivider, Spillway, and elsewhere. Her work has also been featured on Verse Daily. Longhorn lives in Little Rock, AR, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty.