THE PIRATE QUEEN by Maggie May Ethridge

Poem 9 / birthday card

Sally Mann / Fallen Child

The Pirate Queen is a book of poetry I wrote that is 90 percent from my actual childhood and teen years, and 10 from my imagination. Writing from the perspective of my child-self and my teen-self was deeply gratifying, as it put into images and metaphors the exact way things felt to me. It was like taking powerful memories and recreating them so that they had less of a hold on me, and I had more of a hold on them. From my earliest childhood friendship to sisterhood and sex, my early years were all shrouded in deep anxiety and suffering. I survived because my mother fought for me and my sister, because I read, because we had animals, because of my two childhood girlfriends, my sister and my cousin, because of trees and water and the San Diego canyons we lived aside, and because of writing.

" You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far. "
_ Uncle Remus, Song of the South