Creativity & Fiction
Craft a piece of fiction that addresses one or more of the following:
Literary elements (i.e. structure, tone, diction, mood, irony, and figurative language) to craft a narrative and/or poetry.
Structural features of drama (stage directions, character attributions/tags, dialogue, monologues, and/or soliloquies) to craft a script.
Multidimensional characters to develop themes and create socio-political metaphors.
Not Just A Dress
A single sparkle on a gown
Turned into a sea of splashdown… shiny mash.
A single memory to pass down
Not in history, just white ash.
A wedding dress.
A formal gown.
A prom dress.
A night gown.
Racing time through history books
That is, if you can run,
Managing to shuffle by, unshook
By the tight-fitting, constraining, restricting, coercive bottom of your mermaid tail…
Well, what does it matter, I am supposed to be having - fun!
An A-line.
A ballgown.
An empire waist.
A simple, non-appealing suit.
For what is wrong and what is right?
“Do not keep your elbows on the table,” a mother would yell.
And hers before that for generations, all showing sleight
Of hand in the telltale tell.
Pink.
White.
Rose.
Blue.
These are all feminine colors that follow the standards of purity we must abide by.
Who is to say the decorum of a hundred years ago at a debutante ball is correct?
A dress is far more a statement of outward appearance, but an ages’ outcry!
And all that has passed is remnants of society and folklore all wrecked.
The Met Gala.
A Ball.
The Opera.
A Concert.
They tell stories, now hidden behind metaphors in works of art we call books.
They no longer refer to us as they did, but in we find the words they meant to write.
We are no longer pawns but rooks,
Using our femininity and gender to set the scale balance right.
A sparkle.
A sequin.
A feather.
A strap.
I quite like the shine of all things on this dress.
A dress is so much more than something to impress
With the history, it holds upon its own address
But like and embrace it I will with all the finesse and fluoresce that I may express.
Analysis
Although this piece is open to interpretation, I would like to explain my though process as I wrote this poem. The first stanzas of the poem of actual substance are short, and as the poem progresses, they grow longer, as the character of the poem is expressing her thoughts and thinking for herself. The first stanzas of the poem express a girl, not wanting to try on any dresses, and honestly being disgusted by them because of what she initially thinks they stand for. This character only sees dresses as the restrictive and forceful objects placed on women, especially in history past. By the 7th stanza the girl realizes that standards have changed and that the purity and femininity dresses used to stand for is no more, but now she is conflicted with feeling as if this was almost taken away from the people of the past. She soon realizes that she likes the shine and sparkle of the dresses and that they can be used to embrace who she is rather than fighting it; clothing is just clothing, nothing more, and will not define who someone is. The interjecting stanzas are used to highlight just how many dresses, options, occasions, etc. there are and the overwhelming scene of it all to this young girl. I also included some play on words such as “sea of splashdown” throughout the poem.
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