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Saturday, December 24, 2016

The Witch and Clive on Christmas Eve

The most fun payment for a poem, ever!
Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Printed by Daniel Bug at the Penfold Press.
The Toy Town Theatre in Christmas lights.

If you would like to see the poem I wrote for Clive Hicks-Jenkins while taking a break from adorning the Christmas tree, fly here to his Artlog. "The Witch of the Black Forest" appears in honor of his marvelous, just-out Hansel and Gretel (Random Spectacular), which I expect that you will wish to buy during the 12 Days of Christmas. The poem was written for a contest to accompany the appearance of the book (with the prize of a Toy Town Theatre), and it's not the first time Clive has impelled me to write a poem.

And it's wonderfully scary, that book, and perfect for a launch date in Advent, when good Christians are to consider The Four Last Things: death, hell, judgment, and heaven! But good viewing and good reading all year long.... Here you can see some images and the great little book trailer.

Merry Christmas!
And thank you to Clive....

The Toy Town Theatre in toy snow.

Gretel and a ginger threat!

The witch's forest.

The witch's nose!

7 comments:

  1. Dear Marly, what a treasure you are. And what a delight it is, this ping-pong ball of creativeness that we so cheerily lob, each to other, with ease and sprightliness. I send the warmest of Christmas hugs. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the poem. I will not be able to think of the witch again without your descriptive, 'swazzle-voice', filling in the soundtrack. (I knew what she looked like, but now you've gifted me with her sound!) Nor be able to imagine her without thrusting those bony fingers into a pocketful of children's teeth to sow into her abattoir of a garden. I've always imagined, while adding images to your books, to be insinuating myself into the cracks between your words. And here you are insinuating yourself into the voids between my picture book images. How perfect is that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Ease and sprightliness." I like that!

      Yes, I love that feeling of completion and wholeness in collaboration (like a fraternal twinship. Or, as auto-correct prefers, a township. A tiny township! Maybe that's the white tent in the Dark Movements Toy Theatre....)

      Merry Christmas with love to you and Peter and Jack...

      Delete
  2. I love that you threw a yiddish word in there too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It almost sounds as if there is a second one--swazzle is sometimes spelled schwazzle.

      Delete
  3. Merry Christmas

    FYI . . . My blogging is going in a different direction at a different address:

    shortstoryreadersdigest.blogspot.com

    Please join me there.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Merry Christmas to you, Tim.

      Shall come by. Of course I am not surprised!

      Delete

Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.