[Matt Q]

A devil’s daughter

After The Old Woman with Five Cows, a Siberian folk-tale

Of course I only had one leg,
And a twisted one at that.
And a single withered hand stuck out
From just below my breast –

And maybe I’d just one of those,
The story doesn’t tell.
My single eye was furious.
Of course. Whose wouldn’t be?

My tongue, mark you, was made of iron,
And fifty foot in length –
Oh yes, I had some weapons left,
To pierce my enemies.

And I pulled on a pure, white skin
I’d borrowed from one blessed
And that way walked – no longer hopped –
My hovel left behind.

How foolish, though, to think I’d pass
Among the fair of limb.
The red-furred weasels ran from me.
A horse spoke of my ruse.

For thirty days in a mountain stream,
My bridegroom scrubbed away
All tainted trace of me from him.
The horse kicked me apart.

And like all slugs and reptiles do,
I crawled away unclean.
.

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title: "The" -> "A"

[Rick Mullin]

This is very good, Matt. Imaginative and startling imagery.

Just a quick note at this point--on form. It perfectly suits this poem that the rhyme a reader feels is coming in the fourth line of each stanza does not arrive. That refusal to satisfy expectations of the narrative ballad propels the poem. It's devilish.

Rick

[Glenn Wright]

The first person POV is an interesting choice. I wondered whom she is speaking to (her father? A woman who might understand her deception? Another hellish creature?) and why she would not know how many breasts she has. I like that she is able, at least temporarily, to fool her human bridegroom, but not the animals. Her defenses seem to be verbal rather than physical.

[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by Rick Mullin

It perfectly suits this poem that the rhyme a reader feels is coming in the fourth line of each stanza does not arrive. That refusal to satisfy expectations of the narrative ballad propels the poem. It's devilish.

Yes, just this: I hate it. (In a good way; it's very effective.) It's a crooked form for a crooked subject.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Matt, you are so adept at creating worlds that others never dare enter.
It is a real writer's gift.

Nemo

[Mark McDonnell]

Yes, what Nemo said. Your work often seems full of a deep sympathy for the grotesque as a manifestation of outsiderness and exists in an imaginative space where metaphor and a warped reality blur. This is a really satisfying example, Matt. I like it lots.

[Jim Moonan]

.
A couple of spots puzzled me upon first read, but they dissolved quickly when I stopped and let the creature you've created come to life. It's a complete portrait of a startling realization that the devil is also a father. (A horrific thought: who was it that he impregnated that gave birth to his daughter? I shudder to think!)

I think it's brilliantly perverse. It crept up on me with every new detail and creeped me out in the most macabre way. Though I hate to compare (but often do) it's Tim Burton in verse. Dysphoric in its depiction. Undisguised evil in disguise. Seriously good.

(The couple spots that struck me as odd at first was 1.) the fifty foot iron tongue, and 2.) the momentary confusion I felt when I read, "And maybe I’d just one of those, / The story doesn’t tell." But both only became clearer as I let my imagination play with them.)

This demands a companion graphic depiction. Or is it an ekphrasis?


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Stepping back in to say it occurred to me that there might be a biblical account of the Devil's daughter, but so far as I can glean, there is none. However, google produced a plethora of mythological references and lore in and around the subject. You might find this article interesting regarding the work of Gustave Core.

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...Back looking again, I see you've capitalized each line. Hmmm.

.

[John Riley]

I can only heap on more praise. This is an individual poem. It has your mark and your voice. It's complete in that way. So few achieve this type of individuality.

It's a weird and strong poem and should be published where more people can read it. I only use the word unique to mean one of a kind. This is unique.

[Erik Olson]

Matt,

As others have pointed out, this is weird and unique in the best way. Reading it, I had no nits. The only thing I wondered, at first, is if it would make more sense and thus be better to mention more animals among the fair of limb in stanza 5, line 3.

How foolish, though, to think I’d pass
Among the fair of limb.
The red-furred weasels ran from me.

Then again I suppose the oddly specific ‘red-furred weasels’ only being described lends to the weirdness and uniqueness. Something more expected might diminish those qualities. This is indeed something I never would have imagined but for this poem. Well done.

Best

[Matt Q]

Rick, Glenn, Christine, Nemo, Mark, Jim, Erik

Thanks everyone for your comments!

I wrote this after reading a Siberian (Yakut) folktale called "The Old Woman with Five Cows". (Oddly, the cows play almost no role in the story). It's a wild story. There's a talking horse (the Yakut were big on horses) and a romantic heroine starts out as a herb with five sprouts, and grows back after she's killed.

The devil's daughter is the villain of the piece. As is often the case, even now, physical deformity/disability is used a marker of evil, but I was struck by just how extremely it was done in this story. This prompted me to want to tell the tale from her perspective: a persona poem.

I posted this without reference to the source story because I wanted to know if it worked on its own, without the story for clarification/reference, and it seems it does. I'm thinking, though, that it will need an epigraph when/if I send it out, not least because I don't want to appear to have invented it all, something which I hadn't really considered. I also wasn't sure how to reference it. Maybe just "After a Siberian Folktale"? Or "After, "The Old Woman with Five Cows", a Siberian Folktale"?

All,

Regarding the praise for the imagery/imagination, almost all of the details are taken directly from the story, so it's not really credit I deserve, and actually, I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable about now having made the source clear. Though I'm pleased that it reads like something I might have come up with -- if that makes sense.

Rick and Christine,

I'm glad the form worked for you. It does seem to propel the poem along. I also tried to write a rhymed version, and it definitely lost something.

Glenn and Jim

That she doesn't "know" how many breasts she has was intended to reflect the fact that she's commenting on a story about herself, about the way she's described. Perhaps suggesting that the story was exaggerated.

Mark,

I'm really pleased you got the intention here. And I like that you see this as a theme in my poems. I don't think I'd previously seen that very clearly, and it's helpful to have it pointed out.

Jim,

She is a described as "a devil's daughter". I've changed the title according. Hopefully that removes the more Biblical associations, which is good since it's a shamanic culture, and maybe avoids the question you raised.

Erik,

Good to see you again! I'd been thinking of the "fair of limb" as only referring to people. She leaves her hovel (in the woods) in disguise and goes among able-bodied people. I wanted "passes" in both senses. That goes through them, and that she is taken for one who is able-bodied. But you're right, the weasels and the horse are also physically intact and so "fair of limb". The red weasels' reaction is straight from the folk-tale. But yes, an unexpected detail.

Thanks again everyone.

Matt