Day 8: I, of the Grain—a quatern published in The Rat's Ass Review #NaPoWriMo #NationalPoetryMonth

Demeter, Copyright 2013-2014 HoneyJadeCrab from DeviantArt

Happy to announce that on this Day 8 of National Poetry Month, my quatern about Demeter, goddess of the harvest, entitled I, of the Grain has been published in The Rat's Ass Review. Many thanks to Roderick Bates for selecting it. You can read it here!

Demeter is the food bringer, the law bearer, the mark of agriculture upon civilized society. She's not to be trifled with. She is in charge. I imagine her as a goddess who provides swift punishment if her strict rules are not carried out to her exacting specifications. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

A quatern is a French form with a refrain. 16 lines of 4 quatrains. Each line is 8 syllables. The first line serves as the refrain and migrates to the second line in the second quatrain, the third in the third, and the fourth and last line in the fourth. There are no particular rules for rhyme or meter. Play with it, and post your results in the comments section so I too can enjoy the fruits of your labor!

The Rib —a fractured fairytale

Adam and Eve Claude-Marie Dubufe, 1827

I always thought that Eve got a raw deal in the Judaeo-Christian creation myth. She makes one misstep and is punished unduly with menstrual cramps and the pain of childbirth. Sucks, right?

But in retrospect, someone else may have suffered unduly from the start. Before the snake and the apple make their way into the story, did Adam have agency in any of his actions or decisions?

I don't think so.

What if Eden was less a garden of earthly delights and more a pen where God kept his tortured playthings under force? When I started questioning certain premises in this tale that serves as the foundation for much of modern western culture, I didn't like what I found. In a certain slant of light, the God in this story strikes me as an abusive, negligent parent. Like the kind of entity who shouldn't be allowed to adopt a pet from the SPCA, never mind design all life on earth.

It makes me feel sorry for Adam, Eve, and all of us, really.

I wrote a poem re-framing this myth. The Rat's Ass Review recently published it in their Love & Ensuing Madness series which features "poems from all points of view on the broad topic of love." My poem is entitled The Rib—a fractured fairytale, and you can read it here.