"The Belladonna of Sadness" by Sally Wen Mao

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day October 31, 2019   The Belladonna of Sadness   Sally Wen Mao

Spring in Hell and everything's blooming. I dreamt the worst was over but it wasn't. Suppose my punishment was fields of lilies sharper than razors,                   cutting up fields of lies. Suppose my punishment was purity, mined and blanched. They shunned me only because I knew I was stunning. Then the white plague came, and their pleas were like a river. Summer was orgiastic healing, snails snaking around wrists. In heat, garbage festooned the sidewalks. Old men leered at bodies they couldn't touch until they did. I shouldn't have laughed but I laughed at their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow. Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for dead at the castle door. Then I robbed the castle and kissed my captor, my sadness, learned she was not a villain. To wake up in this verdant           field, to watch the lilies flay the lambs. To enter paradise, a woman drinks a vial of amnesia. Found in only the palest flowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinky flower and access its truest aroma, you have to let its stigma show. You have to let the pollen sting your eyes until you close them.              Copyright © 2019 by Sally Wen Mao. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 31, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "This poem grew after I watched the 1973 film by Eichii Yamamoto called Belladonna of Sadness, an animated film about a woman who gets raped and gains the magical powers of sorcery, eventually leading to her witch trial and sentence. Supposedly the film draws inspiration from Jules Michelet's 1862 book 'La Sorcière,' a history of witchcraft that looks favorably on witches as healers who go against the oppressive patriarchal powers that govern everything. Essentially, 'Belladonna' is a story of revenge. There is a scene in the movie where Jeanne, the protagonist, wakes up after making a deal with the devil and she fully expects to be in hell, and yet she actually finds herself in an idyllic paradise full of flowers, trees, and brooks—all rendered in intensely beautiful and disturbing watercolor stills and animations. In this poem, I wanted to play with the idea of this trope of transformation, witchcraft, and duality—and the feminine desire for revenge after unimaginable suffering." —Sally Wen Mao   Sally Wen Mao is the author of Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019) and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). She was a 2016-2017 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Poetry by Mao   Oculus  (Graywolf Press, 2019) "Poem for One Little Girl Blue" by June Jordan "My Sadness" Campbell McGrath "Seer" Kwame Dawes October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz   Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

From Our Sponsors