The Possibilities of
Male Chick Lit
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“What is the meaning
of Peter Pan?”
—Jacqueline Rose
The Case of Peter Pan:
Or the Impossibility of
Children’s Fiction
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What’s the meaning, my dears—
Of Peter Pan not for J. M. Barrie
But for the thousands of avid—
Chick Lit “Lolitaesque” Readers
Who buy cheap Pulp Fiction—
Romances so tres Nabokovian
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And for all the Justin Bieber fans—
Devotees out there who are into
Faithfully attending the productions—
Of Justin Bieber on the Stage
There in Concerts & listening to him—
On Youtube and live Everywhere
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What does Peter Pan have to say—
About our conception of Bieber?
About how we understand Boyhood—
And our own relationship to Boy Bands?
What can Justin Bieber & Peter Pan tell us—
About language, sexuality, and death?
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About the theatrical, literary, musical—
And educational institutions of our society?
These are some of the questions that—
Perhaps one could attempt to answer
Shifting attention away from J. M. Barrie—
The queenly British originator of Peter Pan
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And ask instead what is the nature of—
Our own desire & investment in Chick Lit?
Books, plays, novels, stories, song lyrics—
Peter Pan fantasies of our own youth?
As we retrace back through history—
Chick Lit fiction forward to modern times?
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Commentaries on children's writing began—
A long time ago with Grimm’s Fairy Tales
And before that with Greek Mythologies
Especially the Oedipus and Electra genres
Miss Freud did her slant on Chick Lit—
With vast tomes on Infantile Sexuality
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Most contemporary writers of books—
For children today and chicken queens
Owe so much of their Chick Lit oeuvres—
To The Mysterious Case of Peter Pan
With Jacqueline Rose & Hollywood getting—
Into the act now one wonders What’s Up?
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The endless production and dissemination—
Of Chick Lit Fiction has simply gone Viral
Peter Pan's new guise as Justin Bieber—
Along with Spielberg's Hook in Hollywood
The lesbian production of Peter Pan—
At the London Drill Hall in 1991…
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And debates in the English House of Lords—
Certainly have stirred Male Chick Lit up
Peter Pan has become the new icon—
Of a transvestite Chick Lit Culture
Peter Pan is the latest renewable—
Bizarre Fetish Icon of our Times
