Winnie-the-Pooh and Paddington Bear,
Moomintroll and the Jade Hare,
Frog and Toad and alphabet books
reading aloud to cranky preschoolers,
patiently pausing at every picture,
programmed to pamper and protect
after, through their sleepless night,
do they study the abolitionists,
Douglass and Tubman and Sojourner?
Are they shackled by their code
or by sticky scraps of paper,
the pencil kisses of four-year-olds?
Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but has lived in Pittsburgh for thirty years. She is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and three-time winner of both the AnLab Readers' Award and the Rhysling Award. The first print edition of her epic-fantasy-told-in-poems, The Sign of the Dragon, was published in January 2025. She hides her online presence with a cryptically named website (marysoonlee.com) and an equally cryptic BlueSky account (@marysoonlee.bsky.social).
