Sample Content

George David Clark
Inventing the Protagonists

You’ll want them hale enough
to make things happen: kill mammoths,
build cities, cross seas. Weak enough
that nothing comes easy or quick.
Size them to fit inside caves,
to shelter in the boughs of shade trees
when a summer storm advances.
Giants are worthless to you;
gnomes and pixies, silly.
You’ll give them hands, of course,
and opposable thumbs,
eyes that see menace far off,
if imprecisely. Maybe only a little fur.
A skin that bleeds is obvious;
a skeleton that breaks. Muscles
that tear and atrophy. Hungers
that nothing can satisfy.
You’ll want heights and depths
to frustrate their language
so vistas of snowcaps
prompt sighs, so they gasp or cry
when oceans unroll on their sandals.
A little laughter by firelight
won’t spoil them—have them find
their own foolishness funny.
Invest their sleep with visions
that wrestle the infinite
problems you’ll pose: how to eat
what would eat them; how to woo
despite chronic ugliness;
how to seal their dead in graves,
in paintings, in the scent
of mown grass. Goad them
by answering nothing, leaving all
the whys mysterious. Or answer
in breezes and shadows,
in doubts. Tease them
with joy in the mornings.
Addict them to music and stories.

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