Character: Anne Shirley
Book: Anne of Green Gables
Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
26 writer: Rebecca Dowman
Anne’s vivid red hair – compounded by the numerous scrapes she tumbles into – is her ‘lifelong sorrow’, but her imagination and the natural world offer glorious respite.
When I
am silenced
declared ugly
trail Gilbert in class
regret I
dyed my red hair green
fit my world in a carpet bag
put rheumatism potion in the cake
long for
puff sleeves
fewer freckles
a friend
I breathe, vault onto a prancing Arabian stallion – whose raven coat matches my lustrous locks – and canter bareback through a sun-dappled forest grove, away.