Marchen Cycle, The

Bruce McClelland

By the author of The Dracula Poems, this cycle continues McClelland’s involvement with archetypal motifs, this time centered specifically on the Indo-Germnic tales collected by the Grimms. Each concerns a tale or folk-mythic theme, some more available than others, & each intentionally avoids mere retelling, but chooses rather to articulate the salient dynamics of the particular story. The cycle means as well to get past the trap of interpretation—as the Prelude says, “these stories are not therapies”—for to interpret, in this case, is to deny the activity of the imagination looking at its own history. The result is an arrangement of lyric poems, each capable of standing alone, yet together forming a reasonable narrative of that process known as individuation, with the Wolf doing the talking.