After I read some of my fairy tale series in progress at Chapter & Verse recently, Greg Bem was telling me about a computer video game called The Path, which is based somewhat on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

Red Sisters

In the game, you choose to control one of six sisters, each a sort of incarnation of Red Riding Hood, & are then sent to visit her ubiquitous sick grandmother.  You can choose whether to stay on the path (which leads straight to grandmother’s house, ending the game rather quickly), or to wander into the surrounding woods, where there are strange & spooky & beautiful things to see, & wolves lying in wait.

It’s the going off the path where the good stuff happens in the game.  Although this isn’t really a game– if anything, it’s an un-game.  You do not shoot things or defeat monsters or solve puzzles.  You wander about in a lovely, painterly setting & it’s all very dreamy.  But you can read about that here or here.  

The point is, after losing several nights to poking around the forest as different Reds & seeking out each Red’s wolf (for each, manifested differently, & only for one as a literal wolf), I started poking around my fairy tale anthologies, & began sketching out a new poem series: one after each of the Red sisters, but also informed by fairy tales & folklore tropes & convention, as is the rest of my larger manuscript in progress.  I’ll post as they take shape, starting today.