Sexy Curses: Part 2

...An Upir, the name for vampires in Romanian folklore, was God’s curse reserved for heavy sinners. After death, the person would rise from the grave and return home to feast on their loved ones. The amount of time between death and rising depended on the severity of the sin - a witch would become a vampire almost immediately, the un-baptized child becomes a vampire seven years after its death. The vampire had no free will. Though many people are attracted to, or at least intrigued by, dark themes, there’s nothing sexy or romantic – in the literary sense – about feeding on one’s family and friends. In fact, the curse of an Upir reminds me of the darkness in Hera’s curse for Hercules, driving him to a rage in which he kills he wife and children.

Just as Hercules has shifted into modern times, namely with Disney’s Hercules and the 90s TV series, the list of modern actors and actresses who played vampire roles includes Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Aaliyah, and Kate Beckinsale. Twilight’s lead vampire could (or has, for all I know) make the cover of teen magazines worldwide. High school goths daydream about becoming vampires. Even Stoker’s Dracula, 111 years old, gets literary critics excited by the symbolism of sexuality and seduction in Victorian society. So how did the vampire go from the most revolting curse to a mainstream symbol of dark seduction?...

Sexy Curses: Part 1

A couple of weeks ago I finished the first season of “True Blood.” It didn’t take me long, watching an episode a night, and after the finale I missed having evenings with the supernatural. I then watched season one of “Deadwood,” but its gritty and often grim depiction of life only accentuated my need for otherworldly elements. At the same time my two younger sisters also got into the vampire scene with the release of the movie “Twilight.” In thinking about why this brand of the supernatural appeals to us, I remembered an essay I wrote during college about the symbolism of vampires.

My thesis, vague as it is, argued that in Mikhael Lermontov’s novella, A Hero Of Our Time, the narrator’s comparing himself to a vampire has different implications in the context of the Lermontov’s time period than in the context of my/our time period. The symbol of the vampire shifts between 1839, the novella’s publication date (Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897), and 2004, my essay’s “publication” date. In the essay I focused on how an understanding of the 1839 vampire gives a 2004 American reader a new understanding of the narrator’s self understanding. Upon recently rereading the essay, however, I began to wonder if this shift in vampire symbolism could give insight beyond the analysis of a nearly 170-year-old Russian novella...

Poetry Pals

With much appreciated help, I've worked on a previously posted poem and have it to the point of almost satisfaction. It goes as follows:

Grasp

These gassy ideas
shift and search,
wisp along my mind,

could mean anything to anyone,
or nothing to no one,
like animals in the clouds.

I need tidy oceans,
deep and powerful,
to sail for uncharted lands.

Even a passing shower,
palpable, nourishing,
some liquid to sate this thirst.

Better yet: concrete,
solid and steady,
supporting others’ weight.

Maybe a pebble
to toss at your head -
something you could feel.

-spk