Creative Responses [IB English Lit.]
One of my favourite class assignments is when my teacher allows us to come up with creative responses to poems and stories that we've studied in class. Although my friends think that creative responses are the hardest to do, I absolutely adore reflecting the style of the writers in my own piece of work. Sometimes it's an idea presented in the work that I try to delve into further. I've compiled quite a bit of my creative responses over the year, which I've shared below.
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[In response to Wisłowa Szymborska's metapoetry, such as 'The Joy of Writing']
Phone Call With the Divine No, no — I think you’ve got the wrong number. I am not a “writer”. (who made you change your voice only with that little italic choice) You see, I’m a creator; someone with wits — but better. The silver glint from my Lamy pen fuels the full moon for lycanthropes While my fingers tap-dance on the typewriter to bring rhythm to the soldiers’ march. Under my reign, trees ponder about their roots; cats host their own ‘mouse-querade’ balls. This magic realism often catches Outsiders off-guard. With no real effort, I can dangle you down a cliff — Just three mere dots (I can add them in a jiff) Did you hear about the artist next door who captured a soul inside a frame? What if I told you that too was a metaphor written by someone like me, for fame? I can let you see the past, the future But those aren’t as important As the story unravelling now. So where were we? Ah, yes. You’ve been talking to Almighty: (what blessing, what joy!) Don’t forget what I’ve told you — Or else next time, You may end up dead In the following rhyme.
[In response to Carol Anne Duffy's collection, 'The World's Wife', especially Eurydice & Mrs Faust ]
The Devil Whisperer
You see, the Devil spoke to me
Yesterday, just as I finished tending to my garden.
He spoke words like a drug dealer high on crack;
But maybe I was the delusional one.
His words were sweeter than love, mercury dripping from his tongue —
Into my ears, down to my decollete and pallid breast.
That only got me excited; I didn’t care for the rest.
I thought of asking for some time
To talk it out with my husband
But you know good things never last
So I took the chance and ran fast.
The bite was exhilarating.
Liquid gold pumped through my veins;
I couldn’t get enough of the zest
But I played ‘good wife’ and saved the best.
We were reborn; this time our prime,
Eyes taking in the world for the first time.
Until the accusation came,
And on the criminal record: my name.
My man threw a fit —
Told the boss I did it.
I tricked him into thinking that
His action was a part of my “tact”.
Call me a bitch for the wickedness I bore —
But I suffered as much as you.
Did you know — I’m the mother
Of a killer (the victim was his brother)
I’m no second-place Pandora;
If anything, this makes me first.
The harbinger of all things chaotic,
Evil, and vile.
[In response to stories in Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' anthology]
Maiden-In-Gold Away in a tower A young maiden Longs for love. From a mighty castle A brave Prince Seeks a girl. The maiden bears the gift Of the Heavens: golden hair That shines bright like the sun The Prince grew curious Of this gold, he’s yet to possess And looks for an entrance, Shied away from prying eyes. For a prince can open any door — Even ones that never did before. Her Mother forbids it — As she too is a survivor Of an ending that stripped her bare. But alas, the girl does not listen; Children never do. Her first — not his; Drops of blood, like a Spindle-pricked finger Cast an invisible curse That binds her; It is finished.
But on the way down, the Prince plunges
Into the Devil’s claws
Ne’er again to see his maiden’s golden tassel
Or his ever-growing fortune.
Once a Beauty in a tower,
The Maiden-In-Gold
Now bears the weight of the crown.
[In response to Angela Carter's Wolf Trilogy]
Darkness lives within the woods.
It spoils the air with its foul musk and takes the faintest of heart captive when they least expect it. There hasn’t been a single soul who’d venture into the woods willingly. There’s always a reason: to visit a sickly relative, to find a bluebird, to slay a Beast. But once the woods shut behind you, there’s no turning back. And you never see them again, even if they manage to return. They are different when they come out of the woods. Their soul, empty, as if had been switched with the undead. Nobody dares enter the woods — except for the Widow.
The Widow was once a gallant young girl, destined to be an aristocrat. She was to marry a man with a silk top hat but instead, she fell for a hunter with callouses spread over his hands like a disease. While she fended herself from the harrowing cold winter nights, her husband fended himself from the feral creatures in the woods.
And one day, he couldn’t.
She only mourned for a short while. The Widow soon built a house in the middle of the woods and counted the ways she could avenge her wronged husband. The Widow was certain that it was the Beast who extinguished her husband’s life, even before she got a chance to bear his offspring. A boy and a girl — that’s all she wished for. All that was left within her was an endless abyss, threatening to take over her sanity.
O, the Beast! The one from your most putrid nightmares — it oozes out from the shadows and crushes the cage that holds your syncopating heart. The Beast follows no rules of man; there is only the desire of killing imbruing its eyes red. The moon’s ashen rays only bring out the barbarian trapped within the soul-eater’s physique. It is afraid of nothing, for the Beast knows that the woods are made for it.
The only way to draw it in is to arouse its deepest yearning when it is most vulnerable. The Widow did just that. When the frost settles in on the windows and snow covers the tracks of famished baby rabbits, the Widow asks her father for a wagon full of critters. She strips them of their Brogan skin as if peeling off a cabbage. She then embellishes the eaves and trims with the knots and cords still dripping fever-pitch red — her hands the same colour as the rage within her. The house is no longer a shelter. It is her watchtower. It is her trap.
Gelid winds take the Widow’s message through the rawboned trees and coax the Beast out into the open. It starts with a faint whiff — perhaps a squirrel or a rabbit — and as it pads along the labyrinth, the scent is undeniable. Starved for days, the Beast can almost see the path to its feast. Stairways to Heaven. Closer, closer, their pace quickens. Until they arrive at their destination: a house of treats. But something is different. There are two of them.
Young ones. Not more than a year old. Perfect.
The Beast’s offspring are in front of her. It’s the perfect chance to rid them of their lineage. To dry their savage blood. They are too young to notice that the smell is tainted by a trap. Too young to hear out the quivering breaths. Too young to realise that the human world is crueller than them. The Widow lets her sack engulf the child Beasts. And with two resolute slashes of her silver dagger, the deed is done.
The Widow wipes the blood off on the pure blanket of snow. It leaves a mark — a symbol of tragic loss (on her side). She opens the sack to view her trophies; but in it, there are no longer the children of the Beast. There is something else. A gift.
A Boy and a Girl — just what she had wished for.