Fairy Tales for Writers: Sleeping Beauty

[desayunoencama]

Another sample poem from Fairy Tales for Writers:


Sleeping Beauty
by Lawrence Schimel


There are many who yearn to be frozen
while their youth is at its peak,
to stretch out that ephemeral time
into a hundred years or more.

There are others who seem not to discover themselves
until late in life, following sundry other paths
until they stumble upon a true vocation, such as writing.
We call them sleeping beauties, these authors
who blossom in a later season, their measured, mature prose
a welcome antidote to the youthful brouhaha
that's all the rage in the marketplace these days.

But far too many are the true sleeping beauties,
who at a tender age find a harsh critic
who belittles their talent and their fantasies
with a verbal barb sharper than the nib of any fountain pen
that silences the stories, poems, daydreams
they might have written.

Be it from parent or teacher, sibling or spouse,
just one tiny prick of criticism is all it takes sometimes
to put a burgeoning writer to sleep
for a hundred years,
for a lifetime,
for so long that no princes are left
to hack through the brambles,
or if one is, he can't imagine that he should bother.





Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Schimel. All rights reserved. From Fairy Tales for Writers by Lawrence Schimel, New York: A Midsummer Night's Press.

Comments

[puzzld1.livejournal.com]

Wow!

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

I bought the book in the bookroom at ICFA, and I was reading "The Little Mermaid" aloud to people. Reinventions of fairytales appeal to me, and your collection captures that and resonates with experiences that writers have either seen or been or both.

I quite enjoyed the collection.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

So glad you enjoyed the poems and find they have such resonance. :-)

[tjbtimmy.livejournal.com]

Looks like I have yet another book to buy.