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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
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B A R B A R A H A M B Y
Achtung, My Princess, Good Night
Arrivederci, Cinderella, your goose is cooked, grilled,
burned to be precise, blistered, while you, nestled in your
crumbling necropolis of love, think, who am I?
Delores del Rio? No, nothing so déclassé, yet
even your mice have deserted you, little pipsqueaks,
fled to serve your stepsisters, dedicated now to
good works, a soup kitchen, if you can imagine. What is this
heresy of ugliness that has overtaken the world?
I am Beauty, you scream. Wrong fairy tale, and
just so you don't forget, size sixes are not enough in this
karaoke culture, and even here you have to do more than
lip sync "Begin the Beguine," "My Funny Valentine,"
"Mona Lisa," "Satisfaction," because you can't get no,
no, no, no, consummation, so to speak. Sex is kaput,
over, married a decade, three litters of neurasthenic
princes, your figure shot, not to mention your vagina. Don't
quote me on that you cry, my public can't bear very much
reality. Who can? Yet there it is staring you in the face.
Scram, vamoose, la cucaracha, cha cha cha. Admit it, you're
tired of this creepy pedestal, the pressed pleats,
undercooked chicken, Prince Embonpoint and his cheesy
Virna Lisi look-alike mistress with her torpedo chest. Auf
Wiedersehen to this stinking fairy-tale life, this pack-rat
Xanadu built on the decomposing carcasses of girlish hope.
Yes, all your best friends, all your gorgeous diamonds are cubic
zirconias, but flashing like the real thing, as if you'd know.
"Achtung, My Princess, Good Night" from The Alphabet of Desire (New York University Press, 1999), © 1999 by Barbara Hamby. Reprinted by permission of the author. It is a violation of copyright law to distribute or reproduce this poem without express permission of the author.
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