A big thank you to the editors of Praxis Magazine Online for publishing my poems “The Rule” and “Your Sonnet.” Praxis is an African-based magazine for arts and literature. Check it out by reading the other stories and poems!

“The Rule” is obviously a response to the Covid pandemic. Like a lot of writers, I am torn between wanting to write about the pandemic and wanting to get away from it by NOT writing about the pandemic.

“Your Sonnet” is a poem that a lot of (particularly, but not exclusively) women can probably relate to. It makes use of the Little Red Riding Hood story, as do several of my poems in the last couple of years. I know that I have posted before about my Pinterest board for Little Red art, but now the board has over 1,300 images! I really do wonder if any secular folktale has inspired more art than Little Red: Red in the Woods

You can read the poems here:

THE RULE and YOUR SONNET

Last week I wrote about penpals and posted a link for Snail Mail Social Club. After applying by checking off my interests from a provided list, I was given two names and addresses to write to. One of them was an individual living at home. The other is a staff contact at a senior facility. The idea, apparently, is that the facilities don’t want to give out names for privacy issues so I am supposed to write as many letters as I like for these unknown people living there.

I have to admit I was disappointed. I wrote back, asking if they were going to match me up with people with my interests, but have not heard back. I can send generic letters to any senior facility–I don’t need this “finding” service to get me a staff member’s name. The reason I liked writing to Matt was because he said he was interested in war stories, so I wanted to hear his and tell him the ones I know about from my family. If someone wants to talk about books or history or art or cats, I’m all here. Or there. Or pen in hand.

Does anybody else have information about finding people to write to that I have something in common with? I think it would be more meaningful to shut-ins since I am not a 3rd grader writing with my class. Does that make any sense or do I sound nonsensical?

Let me know what you think . . . .

I decided to leap back into prose by taking a look at the drafts I wrote for the flash nonfiction course I took in July. While I was searching for those in my closet, I ran across a few of my Red Riding Hood books.

As a fictional character, she’s been quite an influence on me and my writing.

But who is she?

There are hundreds of versions of the story and they come from many different countries. Some are old versions from traditional literature and some are contemporary retellings of the tale. Some are children’s stories; some, such as those that spring from the oral tradition, are for the general public; and some, usually feminist or sexualized versions, are for adults.

I’m guessing that most of us are steeped in the European tradition of red hooded cloak, little girl, wolf, grandmother, and woods. We might or might not think of a huntsman. Our Little Red might get a warning from her mother–or she might not. She might get eaten up just before the reader is left with a strong “moral.” She might kill the wolf in a gruesome manner. Or the wolf might run into the woods, never to return. Pinterest is full of images that resonate, so I started collecting them onto a “Red in the Woods” board. I’ve only got 35 pins so far, but there are some beauties. Many of the classic book illustrators have created Little Red art.

Arthur Rackham’s Little Red Riding Hood

Every culture incorporates some of these elements in their little red stories, but the most important part is that a little girl is threatened by a dangerous animal (usually a wolf, but in Asian countries, sometimes a tiger) and either she becomes a victim, is rescued by someone else, or she is victorious over the “bad guy.” The undercurrents involve a girl going out into a threatening world on her own for the first time and the possibility of sexual violation. But those are adult readings, of course.

Sometimes Little Red is a bad ass. Those are the best versions! One of my favorite picture books for children is Ed Young’s Lon PoPo where the Little Red protagonist is a smart, strong oldest sister who outwits the wolf and protects her siblings.

Have you ever seen Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical Into the Woods? In this version, Little Red is definitely a sexual target for the wolf, but the question becomes: is she complicit? Does she in some way lead on the wolf? Is the red hood to draw attention? (And where does the red garment come from? Not from the girl herself). Or is that an adult male (pervert) reading–a Humbert version of Lolita? Another adult reading is that the red hood is a metaphor for Red’s vagina/clitoris/youpick.

In this clip of the 1991 Broadway show, the lyrics say a lot about our culture’s interpretation. It becomes clear that this version is about the loss of innocence.

In the Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs’ song, the wolf leers at Red.

There are other strange bits and pieces that show up in some Little Red stories. The wolf tricks Red into eating her Granny’s flesh. Red tries to get out of bed with the wolf by telling him she has to go pee. At that point he tells her to pee in the bed, but she says she can’t and he lets her go outside tied to a long rope. Some of these elements that seem vulgar or creepy have been edited out of the most popular versions published in the last few hundred years. The confusion between wolf and grandmother is still with us, though. And that alone is pretty strange. Dangerous wolf looks like beloved grandmother? Beyond strange.