My editor seems happier with Version 2 of I Like It Hard, although there are still a few kinks to iron out – although it wouldn’t be the same book if all the kink was ironed out…
Supergirl
I’m not a comic book fan, mainly because they’re nowhere near as popular in Britain as they are in the States. Growing up, I knew Superman and Supergirl from the films; Batman and Wonder Woman from TV; Spiderman and others from cartoons. My occasional contact with comic books was therefore confusing and dissatisfying.
I loved the Superman films – the first three, anyway. I wanted to love the Supergirl film; it had its good points, but was awful too.
But the Supergirl film was hamstrung by the essential question of Who is Supergirl? Not until the excellent Smallville did Kara escape her cousin’s shadow – and since Smallville was emphatically not about Superman, it couldn’t afford to give us more than a few glimpses of Supergirl.
When I decided to write about Supergirl last year for National Poetry Writing Month (April 2014), I wanted to pull her out of Superman’s shadow. I spent a month imagining her in different tragic and heroic roles; some funny, some sad, some sexy, some angry.
Ultimately she is a far more interesting person than Superman. Kal had an idyllic childhood, and as an adult he must conceal his true self from all but a few. Kara has lost everything, her planet gone, her family gone – all save Kal, who does not share that traumatic memory.
even when it fell
Krypton was beautiful
my mother wore red
moment of destruction
still behind my eyelids
photographic memory
One of the poems was A hero true, which had the villainous Mistress X hold a city to ransom, demanding that Supergirl submit to her erotic demands…
I like a good lesbian romance, and the story of Supergirl and Mistress X has grown into an epic saga – there are currently twenty poems in the saga. Maybe there will be more.
where else can I sleep
except in a villain’s arms?
she’s lined with silver
she is the storm and I her eye
Lilith
I grow havoc-wings and mordant feet
That’s a line from The Passion of Lilith by Pamela White Hadas, an extraordinary poem that I love for its subject as well as the vivid poetry. I chose that line because it echoes the 3800-year-old relief shown here. Hadas’s Lilith is ‘the first liberated woman… Adam would like Lilith to lie beneath him in the sexual act, and to be subservient in every way; Lilith naturally has other ideas.’
which of us, Adam or Lilith, keeps a promised land?
He let me leave, found Eve, and even Genesis
left me out,
but he couldn’t forget
Gorgeous and passionate… Here’s a little something by me:
lilith wears the night
passion like fire-splintered ice
too bright for eden
Lilith and succubi have been on my mind this month because I have started reading Down Where The Blue Violet Beauties Bloom, the first book in Jacquotte Fox Kline’s new fantasy trilogy Down Deep Inside about an angel who falls from Heaven into a city of succubi ruled over by the goddess Aphrodite. I couldn’t resist asking the author some questions, and her answers turned into a guest post.
Posts
- Beneath the Cooling Sun, a young Mistress X has superpowers
- Just X Found, X finds a crystal…
- That Shattering Night, … and gives it to Kara
- Who is Supergirl, musing on Supergirl as hero
- The sin of pride, Lilith is less than impressed with Adam
- but who will worship you, a scornful villanelle
- the banquet before her, a cinquain – about a succubus, perhaps
- A succubus sat on a rock, limerick poem about an insatiable succubus
- Goddesses of Love, Lust and Liberty, talking about mythology with Jacquotte Fox Kline
- shadows in Earthlight – a carvery of hearts, November’s round-up of haiku
Francis James Franklin 