women and monstrosity
As I was editing the final version of the upcoming collection of poems and thinking about what holds the book together as a whole, it brought to mind how often the women are becoming something else, either physically or mentally. Sometimes its magical, but sometimes its monstrous. Sometimes it's a little of both. The book lives in somewhat twisted versions of matrimony and domesticity, but also in some ways, the idea of transformation and monstrosity, which is a place I have visited before obviously with previous books and series, but seems important to take into account with this manuscript in particular. Early American vampires. Murdering governesses. Swampy winged women, and, of course, Bluebeard and his wife (and hidden room full of corpses of brides.) Not that I haven't written about monstrous women before, though they are usually less malicious. The Renaissance dog-girl of PELT, the sideshow women of GIRL SHOW and EXOTICA. The strangeness of the SWALLOW poems and the female body. These women have a bit more bite behind them. A bit more violence. The title, of course, actually comes from a brief bit of a Taylor Swift lyric that I scribbled down, a variation on the game of "Kiss, Marry, Kill" or is is "Marry, Fuck, Kill." The project, as I added to it, eventually came to embody those themes, starting with the governess poems, though the vampires, a gothic seaside inspired series, the bird-girl sequence, and finally the Bluebeard poems that seemed perfect to top it off with a flourish.
I am also thinking about this very thing in relation to a coupe of the plays I've been working on the past couple of months, which also have their monsters. The Macbeth witches play is as much about Lady Macbeth as it is about the witches themselves--one of Shakespeare's most famous monstrous characters. Also, as I work on APPETITES, which is about body issues and demonology, featuring three high school girls in the 90s who get in over their heads when it comes to getting everything they want.
Years ago, we did a slate of programming in the library that was more generally focused on women in horror called Beautiful Monstrosities, but more specifically on female monsters and what to do with them. During a panel, I remember one particular interesting discussion about how monstrous a woman is allowed to be before we move from empathy to horror--or maybe the best examples are a little bit of both.Women moved to revenge (though even here its complicated, and many quibble over which is legitimate "revenge." Sadly its often sexual assault of some kind that leads to this plot device. Sometimes, family stuff. A friend or a sibling. But audiences in theaters and online will still likely quibble if whatever she did was justified or unjustified. Like Carrie at the prom and the "good for her" genre of horror and vengeance films. (though if you compare them to something like the John Wick franchise) that may be the same idea in male-speak.
The question then becomes how monstrous is too monstrous. How bad is too bad? What is simple justice and what is uncalled-for. For women, we seem to reach that line faster than their male equivalents and that says a lot.
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