Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience

by Laura Madeline Wiseman

In this campy, contemporary retelling of the Bluebeard myth, Laura Madeline Wiseman charts the love of three sisters who each marry the same man upon the demise of the sister who preceded her. Bluebeard is usually framed as a story of blood and gore, but Wiseman focuses on the love each of his unfortunate wives felt, the first blush of romance and young marriage, the complicated turns of mature desire and the past we bring into our present affections.


Praise for Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience

Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience is an ingenious narrative of poems that transposes the Bluebeard myth to our contemporary lives with a chilling authenticity. The juxtapositions of desire and danger, trust and betrayal, innocence and cunning all seem absolutely modern, as if they could be happening down the street or in our own lives, even as we recognize their ancient, terrible truths. Laura Madeline Wiseman’s command of the language and balance between irony and dead seriousness is pitch-perfect and this is a haunting book.

—Ellen Bass


What happens when a woman dares to enter forbidden spaces? Tucked into legend, the poems in this collection shift from sensual to sexy and from enchanting to haunting, as they explore the question. Laura Madeline Wiseman is both poet and storyteller, deftly moving back and forth through time, weaving breathtaking parts into a heart-stopping whole.

—Tania Rochelle



Predicated on the Bluebeard tale, Wiseman weaves a contemporary mythology that reaches more deeply and pervasively into the very human psychology and psychosis we name love. These poems traverse a dark storm of sexuality—the forbidden, the cruel, the guilty-pleasures. Lunacy and denial pulse mysteriously as mating ritual, as in these lines from “Solo Artist, Another Late Wife”: “…and she pretends for a moment / that this cheap condo is Carnegie Hall and his hands / that rain down on her are applause…” Control and conviction are knives bladed as sharply as the key to truth. Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience is erotic, disturbing, and utterly compelling. This collection, the stuff of nightmarish transformations, may cause you to see an altered face when you gaze in your day-lit mirror.

—Lana Hechtman Ayers



Wiseman’s imagination is expansive, sultry, and wild. Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience is a masterpiece of antonyms. Wiseman’s speaker first appears to be a traditional woman: married, want of secrets, but curious and complex. Like many women, she wrestles with society’s fetters, which is easily identifiable and sympathetic. It is in this way she acts as a great literary heroine; the reader, perhaps lost themselves, roots for her to find her footing. Just as we think we have her understood, the book quickly transforms from a biography of a marriage into a lesson in the subversive. Wiseman’s speaker does reference work in the taboo. She struggles with the direction of her sexuality, fidelity, even marrying her late sister’s dangerous husband seems to be out of her control. She has simultaneous desires: to be dominant, to be taken, to be voyeur/watched, to be pursued/left alone, to be safe, to be killed. Ultimately, this book begs the question: how well can we ever know those closest to us? And perhaps more importantly, how well can we ever know ourselves?

—Danielle Sellers


Drawing from Bluebeard and other renderings of misogynistic myth, Wiseman captures the universal experience of love skewed by an imbalance of power. Seduction, eroticism, betrayal, self-knowledge in the aftermath—it’s all here in this beautiful book, in fierce, aching lines chiseled with elegance and compression.

—Rebecca Foust

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

About the author

Laura Madeline Wiseman's latest books are Velocipede, published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press and Through A Certain Forest published by BlazeVOX [books]. Her collaboratively written chapbook with Andrea Blythe, Every Girl Becomes the Wolf is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

She is also the author of the full length collections of poetry An Apparently Impossible Adventure (BlazeVOX [books], 2016), Drink (BlazeVOX [books], 2015), Wake (Aldrich Press, 2015), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), American Galactic (Martian Lit, 2014), Queen of the Platform (Anaphora Literary Press, 2013) and Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012).

Her collaborative books are People Like Cats with Chuka Susan Chesney, (Red Dashboard, LCC in 2016), Leaves of Absence with artist Sally Deskins (Red Dashboard, LCC, 2016), The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters with artist Lauren Rinaldi (Les Femmes Folles, 2015, and Intimates and Fools (Les Femmes Folles, 2014) with artist Sally Deskins.

Her flash novel is The Bottle Opener (Red Dashboard, LCC 2014).

Her letterpress books are Unclose The Door (Gold Quoin Press, 2012) and Farm Hands (Gold Quoin Press, 2012).

Her chapbooks are Threnody (Porkbelly Press, 2014), Spindrift (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), Stranger Still (Finishing Line Press, 2013, First Wife (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013), Men and Their Whims (Writing Knights Press, 2013), She Who Loves Her Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). Her early DIY chapbooks include Plastic Matches (2002).

She is also the editor of Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2017) and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013).

Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Feminist Studies, Mid-American Review, Blackbird, 13th Moon, Cream City Review, Poet Lore and elsewhere. Awards and grants include the Academy of American Poets Award and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation grant. Currently, she teaches writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Reviews

[Viktoria Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored this collection of poems from the first page to the last! Each line was compelling and the characters were so very potent and quirky. Wiseman goes into depth over desire and betrayal, devastation and euphoria. Phenomenal read! I'd highly recommend it to anyone :)

[Juliet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some months ago, I read Laura Madeline Wiseman's chapbook, "HIS LATE WIVES", which was a shorter version of this recently published poetry collection. I very much enjoyed that chapbook's multicolored blue innards and here is the potential book blurb I wrote, related to those innards:

"Inspired by the tales of Bluebeard, but offering her own uniquely spooky and contemporary multifaceted twists and turns, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s, “His Late Wives” got my head spinning and swooning Cocteau Twins sounds while alternating in between the creaking beds and locked doors of questionable relationships. It enveloped my brain with creepy questions – When does light blue turn dark blue? What is eye shut glitter and when will it explode and then quietly drip dry closer to nonexistence?

Starting with sweet blue fruit in the foreground and a dangerous monsoon in the background, marriage can shake and stain things and rip “like a run in stockings, ever widening, / an unstoppable opening to air and skin” and then one day “it’s going to unravel, / the window disappearing into the door” and then it will freeze frame down in the (de)basement.

When will a sweet tasting fairy tale turn into blue blood clots? When does sweet dripping become skin freezing to death? The blue may be endless but that doesn’t mean it always stays edible. Sometimes (again and again and again) the passage of time and the hazards of marriage have a murderous ending hue."

~Juliet Cook~

[Adam Wagler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this smart, daring, and necessary retelling of the bluebeard myth, we're offered the stories of three of bluebeard's wives plus a chorus like account from his previously murdered mates. The first bride falls in love, is trusting, sweet, and finds, unfortunately the contents of Bluebeard's locked room to her own demise. Consider the poems "Marriage," "Endless Blue", or "Lawn Husbandry" where she watches with bemusement as her new mate mows the lawn rather then letting it "grow a little wild." The second bride, the first's sister, is wild, mysterious, an artist, one with secrets of her own, but none keep her from that basement room. This wife considers her own acts of disobedience in her recent past, ones where she admits, "I wince hot, wince cold. I wanted all." She's well aware that it is "the broad-shouldered punk in blue jeans" who will "damn me." The third bride, sister to the first two, the more complicated of the sibling trio, offers a tale of healing, heart, and hope.

I won't spoil the ending, but it will surprise and delight you.

[DivaDiane SM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wiseman's retelling of the Bluebeard tale and placing it in the modern world of Midwestern America is nothing short of brilliant. It is often grim and bewildering, at times wryly funny and at others bizarre. It is often very disturbing. Wiseman's free verse is elegant and very down to earth and I found myself often nodding my head: "yes! The rope does clack against the flagpole!" Or "tornadoes do wobble!"

This book was nominated for the 2016 Elgin Award given by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Although it is a reimagined "fairy tale" it is firmly rooted in the real, present world.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s brilliant new collection of poetry, Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), explores the enmeshments of independence and captivity, love and betrayal, death and desire.

[McKenzie Tozan · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’ve heard the stories—two children lost out in the woods, little girl in a red-hooded cloak, three little pigs—we all have. And, admittedly, I have “red” many poetry collections (whether or not intentionally) that focus exclusively on the fairy tale, though I have never read a collection that so keenly focuses on one single fairy tale as Laura Madeline Wiseman has here with Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience. Her exploration of Bluebeard through his wives is all at once emotionally stunning, original, dark and unsettlingly haunting. By channeling the Bluebeard tale through fairy tale and pop culture, we can’t help but see this as a domesticated, though contemporary, reference to Bluebeard as an abusive, domestic husband, or view his wives in their various stages of abuse, grief, victimization and vindication.

Now, just in case you’re like me, and “Bluebeard” was not included in your nightly fairy tale repertoire, here’s a summary (of one version of the story): Bluebeard was a nobleman with a blue beard, which marked him as murderous. Among three sisters, the youngest, Fatima, agrees to marry him and is given a key for each door in the home, though she is instructed specifically not to open one particular door. Upon the visit of one of her elder sisters, Anne, she agrees to satisfy their curiosity, unlocks the forbidden door, and discovers a room with a floor covered in blood and all of the Beard’s former wives’ bodies hung on the walls. As is customary to the fairy tale, the women are then caught in the act by Bluebeard himself, though their brothers arrive just in time to dispatch Bluebeard and save them.

Typically, when I happen upon a collection of poems that focuses on a fairy tale or series of fairy tales, I become skeptical, because—let’s face it—there are only so many ways to spin an already-well-known tale. In the case of “Bluebeard,” there are only so many ways to spin the keys, the allure of the forbidden room, the blood and the death of Bluebeard. However, Wiseman does a remarkable and intuitive thing: she structures the collection through the eyes of the three sisters, taking us through the reign of Bluebeard upon meeting them. The collection is constructed in three parts, through one sister’s point of view at a time, framed in with a foreboding little-did-she-know poem, and followed by what I’ve decided to refer to as an Epilogue. While this doesn’t sound nearly as great as it actually, structurally is, the collection is remarkably sound and lovely, and it really transforms the Bluebeard story into something contemporary.

And what ends up being so, so great about these poems is their emotional depth and severe, honest and raw complexity—particularly in part 1, with the first sister, in my opinion. As is portrayed in many versions of the story, Bluebeard selected the youngest sister as his wife, because she loved him (unlike the older sister, who was more beautiful but hated him)… and we see this tremendous unraveling of love and passion, intertwined with rage, pain, violence and danger. Especially for those who know the tale, who know the potential ending means death for the youngest of the sisters, we ache at her emotional complexity, and at her ability to continue admiring such a dark figure. So, too, can we admire the extensive shift from love to loathing, and perhaps we even have it in us, too, to empathize. Add on top of the well-written sentiment beautiful images and powerful decisions in lineation (which often generate unusual, and overly-satisfying, surprises), and we are transported through poetry that is truly powerful and transformative—of our ideas about domesticity and contemporary relationships, let alone of our understanding of this fairy tale.

Laura Madeline Wiseman has a unique gift and power over taking an unusual, typically short-handed topic, and taking it to a new place—giving it time to marinate, open up and complicate. Whether it’s providing new material to an age-old fairy tale or challenging our beliefs and faith-driven prophecies about life from other planets, Wiseman offers up poems that are meant to make room in our psyches and mess with our neurons, challenge our understanding and make us feel something new. Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience is yet another collection of Wiseman’s that I love, and recommend. Whether or not you’re into fairy tales, and whether or not you are interested in the Bluebeard story, this collection will teach you something about relationships and the domestic with its pop culture references and transformations of the inner-workings of relationships. Take the time to read this; it’ll challenge you, and you’ll thank it for that.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to have the chance to read HIS LATE WIVES, a chapbook which forms part of this collection. Here's what I wrote as a blurb for that chapbook:

The poems in His Late Wives offer us the key to a room and dare us to look inside. Afraid as we might be (should be) of what we will see, we have no choice but to open the door. In these poems, Laura Madeline Wiseman offers a tender, clear-eyed exploration of the mysteries of love, marriage, intimacy, the human heart – and the violence that hides behind our happily ever afters. This is a scary, smart collection. You have been warned.