Katharyn Howd Machan Libri

Fairy tales and myths inform this collection of poems written by a woman who has often danced or fled the shadows cast by old stories. Wolves, princes, looms, combs, swans, straw, blackbirds: these images, polished to the bone by telling and retelling, take on new shape and life when infused with autobiography and lessons learned from others¿ choices and fates. What path can a young girl take when her red sweater grows ragged? How can a bride escape the knife poised to cut off her trusting feet? Yet, too, these poems are about survival, resilience: Penelope learns to weave for and with the women around her; a resourceful witch outwits a stickler who would silence her; a sister escapes murder and grows up into summers of wild strawberries. Ultimately, risk¿s rewards triumph, offering a crone¿s wisdom that even sadness is ¿tipped with stars and stars.¿

Variety in subject, tone, and approach defines Katharyn Howd Machan's selected poems, a choice representation of more than four decades of her poetry. Tracing the literary journey of a woman who has been following the writing path since age 15, Machan's many volumes include poems about raccoons, the female shapeshifter Fox, feminist takes on fairy tales and classical mythology, the personal mythology of her family, her daughter's heroin addiction, her travels to France and Greece, her loves and lovers, her devotion to dance, her appreciation of food. Monologues from her 1888 fictional town of Redwing reveal stories the residents dare not speak aloud. Sonnets chronicle the life of the Professor, a male academic poet, while other poems honor the Wise Woman, the Crone, the Goddess. With the fractured fairy tale, "Hazel Tells LaVerne," Machan's most widely reprinted poem, she gives us a reworking of the princess and the frog tale.