Since a lot of the inspiration for my writing comes from horror fiction, I decided to try and find a way to combine the genre with the confessional style popularized by Plath. After musing on the idea for a while, I thought of centering the poem around a creature similar to the werewolf as its shape-shifting nature best fit one of the emotions I wanted to explore (internalized hatred/disgust). I also went back to the classic fairy tales that featured interpretations of the “Big Bad Wolf ” to help the development of some of my ideas, partly because I had been inspired by Emily Carrol’s Through The Woods which utilizes a structure reminiscent of those old stories. I later added the notes from this process into my sketchbook, in a way I found to be most fitting for themes included in my poem:
When it comes to the actual structure of my poem, I broke it up into four sections: the ‘skin’ (a metphor for the mask people struggling emotionally tend to wear), cowardice and self-loathing (the emotions I wanted to exlpore) and finally the ‘confession.’ The intended effect of this structure was to show the journey from dissociation to acceptance, neither of which are supposed to better emotional states than the other. I had hoped this would also add a sense of hopelessness to the poem to better suit the dark tone I was aiming for. When it came to expressing my chosen emotions, rather than sepcifically naming them in each stanza I instead used phrases to insinuate them. “With a paunch that hangs and swings, a bulbous globe, garish and yellow,” for example is a reference to the term ‘yellow-bellied’, typically used when describing a coward. I also repeatedly used ‘A’ at the beginning of most lines to lend the poem a feeling of breathlessness to better represent that idea of a sort of panicked confession.
Poem: The Big Bad Wolf
The skin is a fickle thing. It is as capricious as the skies above, A malleable reflection, A fleshy glove, A conjured illusion, to mask an ugly thing With a paunch that hangs and swings, A bulbous globe, garish and yellow, A weight that robs a spine of its spring, A hollow pit, that rages with a fiery thing Licking the walls of the soul, A bonfire invisible to the stream of passing eyes, A hunter that marks its foal, A mimicry of sentience that terrifies, not you, but I. I am the thing that lies beneath the skin, But when I huff and I puff nary a breeze is felt. My oh my, look into my sickly orbs, My oh my, my teeth are fitting for a corpse, My oh my, how my skin is gnarled and creased, My oh my, this mangy fur marks me a beast.
Witchers and Witches 