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.