Featured Poem II • April 2014
Princess: A Life
Jane Yolen
First she is a dreaming dot, a spot of life in the warm prison of the womb. She wakes to a cool world, a cold curse, a colder kiss, her own scream. It is easier to dream.
Jane Yolen, often called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” is the author of over 350 published books, including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? The books range from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, nonfiction, and up to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. She has won two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Grand Master Award, and been named a Grand Master of sf/fantasy poetry by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates, and her Skylark Award—given by NESFA (the New England Science Fiction Association)—set her good coat on fire.
As with “Never Told,” her other poem in this issue, “Princess: A Life” is “part of a series of Sleeping Beauty poems called Hedge/Briar/Rose that I’m working on. Since I am still writing, adjusting, polishing and dusting, editing, leaving in and taking out, if the collection is ever published as a whole, there’s absolutely no guarantee this poem will be in there as I change my mind constantly.”
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