I Turned Poems into Characters

My first international story and translated publication credit was a science fiction short called “Where With All.”

I submitted it to the Transnational Arts Production, an arts & culture group out of Norway, for their All Borders Are Temporary collection. They wanted a story per continent (mine won for North America), and translated any entries not already in Norwegian to their language for nation-wide release. I’ve since released it in the original English in my short fiction anthology, Interstitches: Worlds Sewn Together, with Engen Books.

When I first encountered the submission call, I decided I wanted to deepen my short story characterisation experience. So, as a bit of a personal experiment, I wrote four poems. I based each of the Characters in “Where With All” on a corresponding poem. As a rule, I prefer to post poems on Vocal individually, as a poem should be its own experience. That’s not a judgement against anyone who chooses to include multiple poems in one post; you do what works for you.

Here are the three other poems:

Blood Feathers – Taline Jirair

Golden Warship – Daleyza Maite

Living on a Map – Dr. Sibley Blythe

The focus of the story is a robotic boy named Rasa. In a nutshell, I wanted a tale that wasn’t your usual suspect for an A.I. science fiction. No machine uprising. No abuse of the robot by insecure humans. None of the scary evil robot routine. What might that look like?

Without further ado, here’s the final character poem, "Humanoid Possession":

Humanoid Possession

There are too many places to look

For troubles and accidents and enemies

Blame faulty chance on the Fairies

Put us, like recipes, into a book.

But why set your imagination to cook

And list us in demon hagiographies?

Does having targets put you at ease?

Do you think yourself the fish or the hook?

Put a thought to who is truly afraid

Because it is you who wear our skins,

And there are many kinds of blade.

Who do you call for aid

When you see that your shield thins

And there is no shelter from the shade?