Humans turn to story to make sense of experience. I think (and write!) about this phenomenon so often: what about familiar tales gives us comfort, and helps us imagine our way through difficult experiences? Why do fairy tales continue to be told, ever after—then after—and after again? What ways have contemporary poets found to remix the tales, making them new?
One of my absolute favorite fairy tale remixes is Anne Shaw’s poem “Dido to the Little Match Girl.” In this poem, Shaw wishes agency upon the (seemingly) helpless fairy tale protagonist. She takes the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” and merges it with the another story of fire: the mythology of Dido, queen of Carthage, who slew herself upon a burning funeral pyre. Shaw takes these two existing characters and creates a completely original situation with a strong, unique voice, addresses the fairy tale protagonist in second person:
Dido to the Little Match Girl
Anne Shaw
Barefoot in the snow, you’re a specialist
in pathos, I can see. Even at six you have a knack for it.
But take my word for it, honey: You can’t just sit there freezing
by the wall. I know how it is to want things,
to tie yourself to the bed because it burns. I can see you’re that kind of girl
dreaming of a lavish room and cake. But let me tell you something: you can be queen
of the airwaves and still the signal’s weak. Don’t like
yourself too much. I used to believe two bodies
could cross out each other’s grief, that a girl
could take some comfort for herself. But once it starts, a heart will not stop
breaking, that’s the thing. I’ll tell you how it’s going to be:
go with the man in the car. When he asks if you’re a pervert
nod and tell him yes. You don’t have to know what the word means. Just
do what he asks. Because the more you practice giving up
the readier you’ll be. You won’t be twirling in a dress
singing, make me a match. Build yourself a bedroom in a house
of straw and thatch. Just strike one, then another. You dirty
little bitch. Because the place for a girl like you
is not on the common street. The place
for a woman who burns is in the fire.
from The Poets Grimm, edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont & Claudia Carlson, Story Line Press, 2003
Shaw’s Dido takes on a sort of motherly role, using an instructive, wise tone, speaking down to the young girl who hasn’t had nearly the experience she herself has gathered:
But take my word for it, honey: You can’t just sit there freezing
by the wall. I know how it is to want things,
to tie yourself to the bed because it burns.
Here, Dido is candid with the young girl, explaining things beyond her six-year-old scope of experience. By showing her a future, she never quite freezes to death against that wall as she does in the fairy tale, having burned all of her matches to sell in order to experience visions of family and warmth.
As if the story of the matchstick girl wasn’t heartbreaking enough, Shaw amplifies the distress of her situation, adding ,“But once it starts, a heart will not stop / breaking, that’s the thing.” Not only is this interpretation of a fairy tale poem rife with pain and disappointment, but it alludes to the happy ending that neither woman will ever know:
Because the more you practice giving up
the readier you’ll be. You won’t be twirling in a dress
singing, make me a match.
Shaw refocuses the story to show how such “happiness” is rooted in dependency. Here, neither Dido nor the little match girl needs someone to fix their futures; they are each powerful in their own ways.
This stunning final line: “the place / for a woman who burns is in the fire” ties it all together. In a way, this line simplifies the poem because we’re reminded of the connective thread between the two stories; however, fire is imbued with new meaning. The matchstick girl, like Dido, transforms completely—beyond death and beyond rebirth.
She’s given agency and strength that the girls in many familiar versions of tales seem to lack. It’s a poem of reclamation—through fire. And yet we’re left wondering: what is left within the ashes?
Stacey Balkun is the author of Eppur Si Muove, Jackalope-Girl Learns to Speak & Lost City Museum. Winner of the 2017 Women's National Book Association Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Crab Orchard Review, The Rumpus, and other anthologies & journals. Chapbook Series Editor for Sundress Publications, Stacey holds an MFA from Fresno State and teaches poetry online at The Poetry Barn & The Loft. Find her online at http://www.staceybalkun.com/