So every few days or so, I spend time reading other folks’ blogs and getting a kick out of the vastly different kinds of things that people find their passion in, whether it is cooking sous vide, or geeking out about TV shows, or the joys of shoveling snow. And I discovered D. L. Perching’s website for t-shirts for writers of All Kinds of Genres. She had Fantasy Writers and Fan Fiction Writers and so, naturally, I asked if she could make an Epic Fantasy Fan Poetry Writer t-shirt for me, to commemorate the four months I spent back in Spring Semester (read, New England Winter: nine f@#&ing feet of snow, errgh), writing about 250 pages of poetry about Xena: Warrior Princess.

She said yes. Reader, I bought one. In honor of the up-and-coming anniversary of the start of that project, I am going to be posting some of the poems that I wrote, with some of the thoughts I had about the problems of the show I was trying to address. Here is the first, for starters, which is about the events of the pilot episode from the point of view of Gabrielle, when slavers try to take all the women in her village, and Xena, who in dark despair has decided to give up being a warrior (and possibly living–it’s not clear). She then takes up arms again to save them, leading later to Gabrielle following her on her road and then joining her on it.

 

The Slavers Reach Potidaea

 

When you wake on the day that changes

Your life forever, you have no idea, you

Think it’s just another blue, green and

Ordinary day, perhaps a good day

For bringing in sheaves or beating out

The laundry against rocks by the river.

 

On the day that changes your life for

Good, you think your life will never change

From the round of hard work, festival,

Hard work, but that is just because you don’t

Know how to recognize a day like

The one that changes your life forever.

 

Change rarely happens here. When you wake

You know what’s coming: the same old thing.

Then one day, that change. Everything

Changes. Slavers, sweaty and leering,

Sweep through the village like a reaping

Leaving the men bleeding, taking just

 

Young women, the strong or beautiful,

Those who can do the kinds of work that

Such men deem the work of womenfolk.

Terror. Screaming. Chaos and that acrid

Sweat of fear, of the knowledge of what

May be—is—coming. The heart beats too

 

Fast. Even when the unexpectable

Happens: a war cry, sudden salvation—

Your heart still gropes in darkness. And

The next day, when you wake, after that

Night when you relived those horrors, oh,

After that day that has changed your life

 

Forever, you too are changed, like dough

That, when introduced to extreme heat,

Becomes bread, nourishment, food for your

Journey. Sometimes fire destroys, even

Annihilates. But, sometimes, it anneals,

Leaving you stronger even than you were before.