Table of Contents

  Introduction
  1. Mapping the Ways
  2. Spinning the Tales
  3. Voices & Viewpoints
  4. Spell Binding & Spell Breaking
  5. Magical Objects
  6. Desire & Its Discontents
  7. The Grimm Sisterhood
  8. Variations & Updates
  9. Ever After, Or a Few Years Later
  10. Living the Tales
  About the Authors
  Acknowledgments
  Selected Bibliography
  Index of Poems by Tale
  Index of Authors and Titles
  About the Editors

H E N R Y    S L O S S

Fairy Tales

Seeing the courted, won, become
So like the frog one kissed,
A lesson seems to beckon psst . . .

The wretchedness of rag and besom,
Though sisters run it down,
Hurts less than watching Prince turn clown.

Dispell the charmer in your bosom
Before he reappears
Beside you, smiling through your tears.

Take a beldam's advice and buy some
Property on a beach
Desire's bedlam cannot reach.

Give up the yearning to be some
One other than you are;
Surgery leaves a scar.

She took my hand then, moved by some
Impulse or another,
And croaked, Come, darling, kiss godmother.