From One Girl Child to Another

According to Martin Amis, "fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life."

Without story my own life narrative would be rather bleak. I need fiction, stories, lies even to move forward.

When I come across fiction so powerful it blows me away I’ll want to get on Facebook or run up to the rooftops and scream: READ THIS BOOK! I’m also lucky in that I have a good friend who reads and absorbs fiction like it ain’t no fiction, just like me. We are able to talk book. A language of intuition, that automatically assumes that most pain can be assuaged or distracted by an enthralling fable.

I think this is how mankind has been able to continue in the face of wooly mammoths, armies of invaders, revolution, stock market crashes, hurricanes, job loss—all the marquee stuff that stops us cold. We can pick up the flag and go on if only we can carry a really good story around inside of us.

Tammy read Girl Child by Tupelo Hassman and had a literal literary reaction to it.

Girlchild
She walks away from the trailer park
The Nobility double wide,
turning into spark and smoke
roaring and crackling
lighting her way
casting shadows that hover and slink.

READ THE REST HERE, because she had her poem published in an on-line literary journal called Across the Margin. Tammy can be found blogging HERE.

I wanted to send out a prompt for my readers (both of you)—try writing a flash or essay response to some work that has resonated with you. I’d actually LOVE to see Tammy write a series of these poems—one to Scout (To Kill A Mockingbird), to Lily Owens (The Secret Life of Bees), or Bone from Bastard out of Carolina. To the multitude of girls who read and dream and reach.