Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and "The Fool in the Corn"

Tania Pryputniewicz had an unusual childhood. Her father accidentally overdosed after unknowingly drinking an LSD-laced cup of punch at a party in San Francisco. Her parents decide to make a clean break with their current life; the family ended up on the prairies of Illinois, in a town called Stelle. They had become part of the Chosen, a commune led by a self-styled messiah called “the Leader” who preached an imminent apocalypse. But the apocalypse never came, and the messiah turned out to be something of a predator.  

It was, eventually, a return to California, a hope for some kind of normal life and saving her parents’ marriage. The life became more normal, but the marriage couldn’t be saved.

 

Half a century later, Pryputniewicz has written The Fool in the Corn: Poems. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and “November Butterfly”

To enter the world of Tania Pryputniewicz’s is to walk with Queen Nefertiti in ancient Egypt, Queen Guinevere in Camelot, and Joan of Arc as she makes an appearance in the 21^st century. It is a collection that focuses on women, many famous but many not, but it also embraces notions of history, time, perception and understanding in intriguing and original ways.

Pryputniewicz uses precise, simple words and phrases in her poems. This has the effect of focusing attention on the stories she’s telling, often across several related poems.

For example, a full third of the collection is comprised of poems based on the legend of King Arthur, although none of them are about Arthur himself. Instead, Pryputniewicz writes about Guinevere, Morgan le Fay (or “Morgayne,” as she writes the name here), and Mordred, King Arthur’s nephew / illegitimate son.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.