Fairy Tale Review: The Aquamarine Issue #5

FAIRY TALE REVIEW

The Aquamarine Issue

FOUNDER & EDITOR

Kate Bernheimer

ADVISORY BOARD

Lydia Millet, Tucson, AZ

Donald Haase, Wayne State University

Maria Tatar, Harvard University

Marina Warner, University of Essex, UK

Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Molly Dowd, Colleen Hollister, Whitney Holmes, Andy Johnson, Jessica Fordham Kidd, Sarah McClung, Nick Pincumbe, Laurence Ross (University of Alabama)

ASSISTANT & CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Timothy Schaffert (University of Nebraska–Lincoln)

WEB EDITOR

Brian Oliu

WEB DESIGN & PRINT DESIGN

J. Johnson, DesignFarm

COVER ART (INSIDE FRAME)

Kiki Smith, Born

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

LAYOUT

Meike Lenz, Michael Bunce, Tara Reeser

English Department’s Publications Unit, Illinois State University

A co-publication of Fairy Tale Review Press

and The University of Alabama Press

FAIRY TALE REVIEW

www.fairytalereview.com

Electronic edition © 2015 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. Originally © 2009 by the University of Alabama Press and published by Fairy Tale Review Press.

The Aquamarine Issue (2009) 978-0-8143-4174-2

FAIRY TALE REVIEW is devoted to contemporary literary fairy tales and hopes to provide an elegant and innovative venue for writers working with the aesthetics and motifs of fairy tales. How can fairy tales help us to go where it is we are going, like Jean Cocteau’s magical horse? We hope to discover. Please know that Fairy Tale Review is not devoted to any particular school of writing, but rather to original work that in its very own way is imbued with fairy tales.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

—Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

FAIRY TALE REVIEW

The Aquamarine Issue

ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS

KATE BERNHEIMER

Editor’s Note

The Aquamarine Issue is the fifth anniversary issue of FAIRY TALE REVIEW, and is appropriately its most oceanic, its most aesthetically diverse, issue to date.

KIM ADDONIZIO

Hansel

We my sister Gretel, oh Gretel left our father’s house and scattered and lost did not stop at her old witch woman’s cottage candy hungry but kept on into the world, woods.

NAOKO AWA

Translated by Toshiya Kamei Gifts from the Sea

At summer’s end, the seaside town celebrated its annual festival. After all the bathers had gone home, some men carried the mikoshi shrine through the streets, while others beat the taiko drums. In the evenings the narrow path along the sea was lined on both sides with vendors.

DAN BEACHY-QUICK

A Point that Flows

The people walked across the surface of the koi pond. The fish static beneath the water—keeping their place against the machine that produced the current—looked like orange kites filled with wind, tied by unseen strings to a rock on the ground below them.

HUGH BEHM-STEINBERG

On Hair and Babies and the Goblin King

She says I don’t want a baby brother I was the first baby and I want to stay that way. Her baby brother says you should run for office then, or make dad, if you want to be first baby. As for me, I’m looking forward to being the middle child, who wants to be the end of anything, he says.

SARAH C. BELL

Urban Fairy Tale

MARTINE BELLEN

Customers Who Have Bought Sleeping Beauty Have Also Bought This

Upon awakening from a story, before walking through the portal to the hallway into a land where language is required, I confirm I’m ME (a state in New England) (a think group). Some days I don’t arrive at the threshold of my body and a deep, cavernous loss resides where ME would have been.

JESSICA BOZEK

Five Poems

In the theater of strapless extremity, they averted the tourists’ eyes. Not to the heavy curtains undrawn, their missing flutter-labor, but for the entrance the tourists gasped. The performers warbled a way to bird, raised bird to wolf, framed wolf for leopard, posed leopard for wolf. How would they take it all back?

KELLY BRAFFET

The Pulley

At the inquest it was said that the Contessa had killed a hundred young women, and maybe twice that. For the villagers, it was not a matter of how many; it was a matter of all.

JOHN COLBURN

A Brief Tour of String Quartet no. 3 by Karel Husa

As a boy, Karel Husa began to cry and nothing could stop him. Not even a cloud. Not even a talking flame.

ANN FISHER-WIRTH

Two Poems

I am Jenny, your beloved Jenny.

SANDY FLORIAN

The Flood

Like this new thoughts rush in and my mind opens to the flowing tide with its ebb and flood, with its eighth, its quarter, its half moon, its half empty bowl, half full of fuller empty seas, and when it rains it pours and then the waters rise, which we call the flood, that fullest sea, and now again the waters rise while the highest schools of empty fish like empty sticks drift like wood.

ANGELA JANE FOUNTAS

God Bless a Girl Who Thinks Ahead

Mary, Kate, Brigid, Anne, and Elin: sisters. Mary is the eldest, of course, that’s why her name comes first. Mary put the kettle on. We’ll all have tea.

TARA GOEDJEN

Appendix to The Encyclopedia

Four months we sailed upon the ocean (SEE: Travel, seafaring). Our ship slanted during storms and tossed us from wall to wall, and on calm days we were served noon meals of maggoty biscuits and cold stew that Father inspected for meat—pitching it out if he found any. Mid-trip the sea grew what Mother called angry and it became difficult for Sister to nudge me a space at the railing.

ANNIE GUTHRIE

*of poems

Not knowing I came to find things colorful and kind

CARMEN LAU

Familiar

The witch killed my family while I slept. I heard her singing in my dreams.

SAM MARTONE

How to Make a List

There are things they do not tell you about snow.

JOYELLE MCSWEENEY

Salamandrine, My Kid

The twittering machine lies in its crib, rehabilitating its connections. It nails up its habitation, darts up its habillement, it letters its joints, limbs, pistons, limpid injectors for easy filling stations, for stations of, for remote and E-Z filing.

BONNIE JEAN MICHALSKI

O Empress, What Primal Spark?

Belief in an I a primal giver of griefs

fever of gifts and giving yet.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago

In a kingdom by the sea

That a maiden lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;—

NATANIA ROSENFELD

Princeling

Oh blue-

encrusted

garden statue:

how beautiful

you are, framed

against the green

cardboard trees!

SARAH SARAI

Letters, Crones Dont Worry Of

I here relate an episode that befell me many years ago. I had lived near seventeen years, was big of rump and uncommonly meloned of bosoms surely for one with no babe suckling (as is the honor of woman).

AMY SCHRADER

The Red Goblin

You tell me: Don’t tell me.

About the woods, cherie

CARMEN GIMÉNEZ SMITH

Three Poems from Goodbye Flicker

Once for a moment once upon

once there was

there came one day

a king a tailor princess

the fisherman’s wife

MAYA SONENBERG

Inebriate of Air

Bride: a virgin, of course. Drunk on anticipation, the guests laugh boisterously. We make predictions about the first sexual encounter, and some even place bets (position, duration), though it’s hard to imagine how such bets might be settled.

TERESE SVOBODA

Excerpts from Pirate Talk or Mermelade

I have examined all the varieties of jack-in-the-pulpits in the field, every one, and there are three, I believe, and none of them full-blooming which makes the naming of them that much more trying.

CRAIG MORGAN TEICHER

The City

In the city, there is a famous bakery where anyone with a little money can procure cakes and breads of the finest quality.

STEVE TOMASULA

The Kingdom’s Good

Once upon a time, a king told his servant a story about a court buffoon who grew up as a prince, and then came to sit on the royal throne himself.

CONNIE VOISINE

Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?

Where are they? The big nosed ones, the ones with thin hair who walked with serious faces towards me.

G.C. WALDREP

Functions and Variables and Other Tales

Scratch out the eyes. Of the saints in the advertisements. Of the swans in their man-boats. Use a stick, a scalpel, a rusty flange. Fingernails. Teeth: yours.

Contributor Notes

Announcements

EDITOR’S NOTE

The Aquamarine Issue is the fifth anniversary issue of FAIRY TALE REVIEW, and is appropriately its most oceanic, its most aesthetically diverse, issue to date. I often refer to my own method of identifying fairy tales as my sensing (through feeling and through close reading) what I call a fairy-tale feel. The fairy-tale-ness of a work. I experienced fairy tales in every contribution you will find in The Aquamarine Issue. I felt a fairy-tale pulse.

I have been thinking, lately, in terms of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s discussion of affect. Applying his concept of affect to new fairy-tale literature, one sees how these works may be identified atmospherically, scientifically, telepathically: in certain works, fairy tales are water and air. In Gilles Deleuze, author Claire Colebrook illustrates this concept of affect as such: "A horror film presents horror; for beyond the fear of the characters of the viewer there is just a sense of the horror which the film draws upon. The film is not about horror, or a representation of horror; it is a sense or feeling of horror which we may or may not enter. Before the viewer or character is actually horrified we view within the affect or milieu of horror in general."¹ This Deleuzian notion of affect helps explain the range of writing that you’ll find here, as in every issue of FAIRY TALE REVIEW. The works are not about fairy tales, or a representation of fairy tales; it is a sense or feeling of fairy tales which we may or may not enter. In true fairy-tale fashion, I borrow her words: "Before the reader or character is actually enchanted, we view within the affect or milieu of fairy tales in general."

Fairy tales represent hundreds of years of stories based on thousands of years of stories told by hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of tellers. The mind reels at their influence, omnipresence, phosphorescence: like a star or a planet, they shine, ubiquitous and necessary. Like the sea, threatened now by our changing climate, fairy tales, too, are in danger today—often forgotten by grown-up people afraid of wonder—and therefore endangered.

For me what also contains this issue and holds it within the salt palace of tiny sea horses is how the narratives and poems, taken together in here, can be seen to contribute not only to the very important living body of contemporary fairy tales—so nascent and now—but also to the conversation about what constitutes a fairy tale, that monumental type of art we so know and love. As such, I hope that FAIRY TALE REVIEW helps preserve and protect fairy tales for future generations of readers who wish to immerse in their bounty.

Kate Bernheimer

Tucson, AZ

1. Colebrook, Claire, Gilles Deleuze, Routledge: 2002 (26).

KIM ADDONIZIO

HANSEL

We my sister Gretel, oh Gretel left our father’s house and scattered and lost did not stop at her old witch woman’s cottage candy hungry but kept on into the world, woods. We were set upon by rebels guerillas tribesmen revolutionaries who they raped cut off and stabbed left I my sister Gretel, Gretel for dead graves hands, for two days nearly to get we circled back; her cottage, burned ruin, hungry kept us alive. Then Gretel in the night died a creature something dragged her out and half-devoured her it. I filled my pockets I walked I Hansel out recognizing nothing birds circling above me I was a child who liked sweets this is my testimony what I broken know and don’t forget everything has to eat.

NAOKO AWA

Translated by Toshiya Kamei

Gifts from the Sea

At summer’s end, the seaside town celebrated its annual festival. After all the bathers had gone home, some men carried the mikoshi shrine through the streets, while others beat the taiko drums. In the evenings the narrow path along the sea was lined on both sides with vendors.

Even the hardest-working fisherman and the innkeeper took a break from work and had a good time. The townspeople drank sake and danced in broad daylight. At night they went out and strolled among the vendors.

Peddlers came from faraway towns, displayed their various articles on makeshift stands, and hawked them with loud cries. Various goods lined the path lit by a soft light: fountain pens, cigarette lighters, toys, candies, and potted plants.

A chill wind blew from the sea. Accompanying the roar of the small-town festival, the waves on the shore sang: Autumn is here. Autumn is here.

Kanako had two fifty-yen coins in her skirt pocket.

Why don’t you buy something you like? her sick mother had said, placing the coins in her palm. As she clutched them, Kanako decided to buy two things costing fifty yen each—one for herself and another for her mother.

But there was hardly anything she could buy for fifty yen. A red crystal ring cost one hundred, a bead necklace cost one hundred fifty, and a pretty floral-print scarf cost five hundred.

Young girls frolicked around in their best dresses, their hair tied in ribbons. While they bought rings and scarves, Kanako stood apart in her everyday clothes and looked at items she couldn’t afford to buy. But she was used to window-shopping. Kanako didn’t have a father. Her mother had been sick as far back as she could remember. She was always poor and alone. Even so, she had spending money for the first time in a long time. Kanako walked with a light heart, wondering what she could buy for fifty yen.

Then she heard a voice: Fifty yen a bag. Kanako stopped and saw a stand—an empty apple box—between an oden-stew stand and a goldfish booth. There sat an old woman with a scarf as blue as the midday sea, who stared at Kanako.

Kanako went up to the old woman’s stand and saw small shiny items on the apple box. Are they buttons? she wondered, as she bent forward to take a closer look. They were shells.

Are you selling those? asked Kanako. No one would want to buy shells because there are plenty of them on the beach, she thought, a bit disappointed.

They’re all cherry-blossom shells, miss, said the old woman, flashing a friendly smile.

No one had ever called her miss before, and Kanako felt embarrassed.

Take a look. You won’t find shiny shells like these anywhere else. The old woman placed shells on her palm.

They were beautiful—as beautiful as scattered cherry blossom petals.

Kanako silently placed one fifty-yen coin in front of the old woman. The old woman took out a small paper bag and put a handful of shells into it. Miss, why don’t you buy another bag? she said, as if she knew Kanako had one more fifty-yen coin in her skirt pocket.

No. I’m going to buy something for my mother, said Kanako, shaking her head. She grabbed the bag of shells and left the old woman’s stand.

Kanako put the bag in her blouse pocket and began to walk. Then the shells made sounds like dry sand falling softly.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Kana-chan. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The shells in her pocket sang to the rhythms of Kanako’s steps. Or rather Kanako walked to the tune of the shells’ song.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Kana-chan, Kana-chan. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Why don’t you go to the beach?

As the shells sang, Kanako’s feet guided her toward the beach before she realized it.

She walked along the vendor-lined path, passed an abandoned shed at a bend, and reached a beach lit softly by the yellow moon in the sky.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch, the shells sang. Why don’t you keep going? Why don’t you go to the Moonview Rock?

The Moonview Rock stood by the lighthouse. Was it called that because it was a great place to watch the moon? Or was it because the rock itself was as round as the moon?

Led by the shells’ song, Kanako went up to the rock, then saw several figures: one, two, three, five old women in sea-blue scarves.

The old women surrounded the rock as if it were a table and huddled together, as if holding a secret meeting, their scarves fluttering in the wind. As