Challenge 158

What Do You Make of It?

Authors sometimes don’t see their own works in the same way as the readers. The 19th-century German author Theodor Storm is best known for his novellas. Unaccountably, he prized his poetry as no one else has since, with a single exception: “Die Stadt.”

Slava Iatsko observes that his most popular poem is “Miss Christina,” in this issue, but that his personal favorite is “Striped Life,” in issue 156. Obviously, both poems have something to recommend them, but can you explain the discrepancy? Which of the two do you prefer, and why?

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Thomas D. Reynolds’ poems are well known to our veteran readers as miniature dramas. In terms of style they are realistic; in content they distill the essence of “flash fiction” while remaining poems by their mystery and ambiguity. “Kill Them in the Night,” in this issue, is only one example.

What might the “larger story” be in “Kill Them in the Night,”? Are the two men the only human beings left in their village? Or are they delusional about the villagers? Or are they terrorists?
Which other poems of Tom Reynolds’ present ambiguous scenarios?
What techniques does Tom Reynolds use to make more than one “larger story” possible?
Send us a short story or play based on one of Tom Reynolds’ poems.

Responses welcome!