In this clever and well-crafted poem, writer Barbara Tran employs the use of iconic Disney creations to spin a darkly sarcastic allegory for the ideals of the land of stars and stripes. Take a moment to read it today and you’ll see why this poem was selected to appear in the poetry folio of our Panliterary Awards Competition, DB 9, Winter 2007–2008. Here’s just a taste — scroll down for the link to the full poem:

“…Note the buffalo that once roamed
Fearfully across the plains of this country. Now those ungulates
Gallop protected (that is, provided their
Hooves stay within the bounds of Yellowstone. Those beasts are on their own otherwise.)
It is Frontierland we live in, remember?”

Barbara Tran is the author of the poetry collection In the Mynah Bird’s Own Words, winner of the Tupelo Press Chapbook Competition. Barbara’s poems have appeared in Women’s Review of Books, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker, as well as at the Williams College Museum of Art’s exhibition “The Moon Is Broken: Photography from Poetry, Poetry from Photography.” Honours include a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Bread Loaf Scholarship, Pushcart Prize, and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. Barbara shares her home in Toronto with her human and canine partners. For more information about Barbara, her poetry, and her dog training, visit her on the web at barbaratran.com

Click here to enjoy “Dizzy World”

Vintage DB 113: Barbara Tran’s “Dizzy World,” DB 9 was originally published in Anomaly on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.