But wait - “My First and Last Proclamation as the Child Freed and Crowned Queen of Omelas” by Palimrya
BogiReads brings you the daily speculative reading recommendation of editor Bogi Takács.
Today's recommendation -
Author: Palimrya
Title: “My First and Last Proclamation as the Child Freed and Crowned Queen of Omelas”
Venue: Prismatica, February 2021
Type: Poem – Under 50 lines
Themes: Fantasy, Omelas, suffering, guilt, collective responsibility
Where to read: Text free online
Clarkesworld just ran a retelling of Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, which is going viral on Bluesky: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim. I’m still thinking about it. It made me wonder… All the Omelas takes I’d seen were written from the point of the view of the general public. But whenever I think about this story, I always think of it from the perspective of the child. Has anyone written that?
I went and looked and found this poem! It’s very different from what I would’ve written, and I love it. “I want the excruciation of every murder / that might ever happen capsulized so I can / take it with tomorrow’s breakfast.” It has both the driving anger and the transcendence. Yes please.
Until next time,
Bogi.