35 Haiku Written for the Cartoon Heroines of Our Time

We asked a group of creative friends to send us haiku in honor of their favorite leading ladies in cartoons.

Hello! A couple of weeks ago, giddy with anticipation for Finding Dory’s impending release, we asked a group of some of our favorite creative women to send us poetry written in honor of their favorite leading ladies in cartoons. Our rules were simple:

1. The films had to star a female protagonist. (As much as we adore it, a film with co-leads, like Princess Mononoke, did not count here.)

2. The films had to be feature-length films, comprised mostly of animation. (TV shows with films counted, though. And don’t worry, we’re planning a list for leading ladies in television too.)

3. It’s gotta be a haiku. (“Please riff ecstatically! You have 17 syllables, so make them count!” and we left it at that.)

The resulting poems below are so many things: empowering, existential, vulnerable, resolute, and more. As a whole, they echo and expand upon the human experiences that animators, voice actors, directors, and other creatives poured into the original cartoons. We welcome you to read, share, and tweet their work—and contribute your own by replying to this post on Medium or sending it directly to us!

Alice in Wonderland

Perhaps the Red Queen
was the first to recognize
the fight in Alice.

She taught me to fight.
She was my Red Queen — lady
crimson, spiteful, bright.

I have never been
Alice. The Red Queen has my
heart. “Spiteful,” you said.

I hear you, Red Queen.
The world is undeserving,
filled with her silence.

Corinne Segal

Anastasia

I often wondered
if the real princess was still
alive and kickin’

I too would want to
marry John Cusack if he
vanquished Rasputin

Cassandra Baim

She lost her mem’ries
I lost my heart to a boy
Cartoon Dimitri

Carly Piersol

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast
A woman who loves stories
Finds herself in one

I loved the girl Belle
For we liked the same stories
I read hers often

Beauty and the Beast
Can we just talk about Chip
What a cutie pie

Carly Piersol

Brave, clever, well-read
A cursed beast won her over
Smart: the new sexy

Samantha Morgenstern

Brave

Notes from Ursa Major

You know that they say
A will-‘o’-the-wisp can lead you
To your fate, it’s true.

From overbearing
to bear mother, a Queen can
change her daughter’s mind.

Be brave little lass
For one day you’ll have to fight
For the fate you choose

Notes from Ursa Minor

A bow and arrow
Are useless when you’re facing
A will-o-the-wisp.

Or a mother hurt
By angry words and broken
customs but love heals.

Fate lives within us,
We only have to be brave
Enough to see it.

Kelsey Amentt

Princesses don’t need a prince.
Just their own arrows,
and some feminine magic.
Neeti Upadhye

Coraline

I’m keeping my eyes
Young girls with so much to give
Need to see clearly

Jillian Anthony

Lonely girl tempted
By alternate universe
Desire betrayed her
Marina Zarya

Daria: Is It College Yet?

Don’t mistake me as
humorless, asexual
— just dissatisfied

Two more slices, please
with some pepperoni and
a side of Nietzsche

Eighteen misfit years
in the upper middle class
Hashtag white teen angst
Lex Curry

Escaflowne

Despondent, withdrawn
A girl unearths her power
With new wings she flies

A world ruled by men
Falls to the will of a girl
Who just longs for home

From the mystic moon
With her will, a girl decides
The fate of their world

A fighting robot
Is no match for the will
Of a teenage girl

Kate Drozynski

Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest

Fern Gully, the film
Classic ’90s parable:
Save the rainforest

The gift of Magi:
Self sacrifice killed Hexxus
Fern Gully was saved

Pristine rainforest
Humans destroy everything
Fairies save the day

–Amelia Kidd

Finding Dory

As Dory returns
I too remember fishy,
Familiar voices
Ruth Morrison

Frozen

There are times I sing
Elsa’s main song to myself
Til I can destress

One redhead, one blonde
Sisters trying to make it
I know this story

Carly Piersol

Ghost in the Shell

-origin paranoia-

my thirty fingers,
how lucky I must be in
my singular cloak

-savage-

without a dearth of
bodies: infiltrate my brain,
tear apart my flesh

-dim mirror-

I imagine be—
coming someone else when I’m
floating in the sea

Leanne Butkovic

Howl’s Moving Castle

Withered hands hold hearts
Her quest took her back in time
She is newly free

Siena Koncsol

Inside Out

Growing up is hard
You need both joy and sadness
To get through it all

Krystie Lee Yandoli

Kim Possible: So the Drama

Take charge (in any “sitch”).
Kick ass in a crop-top, girl.
Crush crime and teen drama

Jillian D’Onfro

Lady and the Tramp

Plate of spaghetti
Two meatballs, many noodles
Two puppies find love

Carly Piersol

The Little Mermaid

My entire life
I’ve dreamed I am a mermaid
who wants something more.

Julia Carpenter

Moana

Cautiously hopeful
That Disney treats brown girls right
Please don’t fuck this up
Ruth Morrison

Mulan

Doing a “man’s” job
I changed my own reflection
And led with my heart

–Jessica Vilas-Boas

My Neighbor Totoro

Little girls beat fear,
befriend giants, and fly off.
Happens every day.
Alanna Bennett

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

The princess is blind
To all fear and ugliness
Look past the toxins
Christina Sterbenz

Persepolis

Protesting the veil,
With her “PUNK IS NOT DED” shirt,
Marjane is badass.

Libby Sile

Pocahontas

my mother’s spirit
disobedience a path
where the river bends

Deeya Burman

The Secret of NIMH

A mouse and woman
Neither seen as fierce, able
Pendant’s perception
Christina Sterbenz

The Secret World of Arietty

Tiny items found
Reveal the hidden nature
Of a friendship doomed.

Siena Koncsol

Sleeping Beauty

One sleeping beauty
feminist antihero
yawn. Our time will come

Spinning spinning wheel
I wait to poison beauty
we just play our roles

I dreamt of this once
waking up into a dream
how can I end this

–Sophia Korb

Snow White

she washed their dishes
she cleaned their house and realized
“the patriarchy.”

Taylor Trudon

Spirited Away

There’s so much to say
About a bathhouse, No Face,
Miyazaki sky.
Julia Carpenter

Tangled

Tresses once glowed gold
Rapunzel with the good hair
Lost beauty, magic
Melia Robinson

The Triplets of Belleville

Love is riding bikes—
Perpetual, enduring.
The end is worth it.
Claire Dunderman

The Wild Thornberrys Movie

Boarding school dropout
She’ll save the earth. But first! A
purple-butt baboon.
Julie McMahon

Zootopia

incredible, right?
that a rabbit reminds us:
“the future’s female.”

Angela Hu

Thanks for reading The Dot and Line, where we take animation of all kinds seriously (but not too seriously). If you liked what you read, recommend this article and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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