In Memoriam, Briar Rose

This poem is a version of the fairy tale, “Briar Rose,” also known as “Sleeping Beauty.” It is inspired by a poem with the same title by Anne Sexton, which is also a far cry from the Disney version with which most people are familiar. This tale is not for children.

In Memoriam, Briar Rose and the art work illustrating it were inspired by and created for my photography/art/graphics exhibit, “Mud Road: Stories, Poems, and Images,” at the Cell Gallery at Writers & Books, Rochester, NY, June 1997. The exibit was supported in part by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). The four-part image consists of four separate images. Left to right: 1) my mother at age 7, 2), my daughter at age 17, 3) my mother at age 23; and a self portrait I made with oil based crayons when I was 19, in 1967. They are dropped inside a photo of a barn window taken circa 1987 in Iowa.