Robbergirls

Robbergirls is a Sapphic retelling of Hans Christian Andersn’s fairy tale, The Snow Queen. It was inspired by a childhood fear of, and desire for, the character of the Robbergirl who both taunts and aids Gerda in her search for her missing playmate, Kay. Written during a residency with The Polar Museum in Cambridge, Robbergirls reimagines The Snow Queen as a Sapphic rite of passage. Offered in seven sections that echo the fairy tale’s form, these hot, tender and generous poems search for a lost other who is by turns friend, brother, son, lover, but ultimately an aspect of a fragmented self. In her formally playful and linguistically rich third collection, Benyon suggests that the ache for contact can be tempered by nature, even with disordered seasons. In striking poems that refuse to deny environmental breakdown, the poet holds space for the indigenous people of the Arctic as she considers the devastating impacts of climate change on their landscapes and lives.