Review by Kelly Jarvis: The Thorn Key: Fairy Tales in Verse by Jeana Jorgensen

The Thorn Key: Fairy Tales in Verse, is a stunning collection of poetic fairy tale retellings and examinations. Jeana Jorgensen invites her readers through a series of doors (Door of Red and White Roses, Door of Swan and Raven Feathers, Door of Gold and Silver Crowns, Door of Bone and Ice Needles), admonishing them to be careful with the key because “it bites.” The journey is well worth the risk of danger, however, because behind each door is a collection of poems which deftly weave folklore into contemporary life, leaving readers breathless.

Jorgensen, who has written academic books including Fairy Tale 101 and Folklore 101, brings her insightful and scholarly background to each poem while using accessible and alluring language. The fairy tale imagery in this book seeps into the modern world as the poet equates selkies with ghosting and sets classic narratives like The Twelve Dancing Princesses in a post-World War II society. The collection contains an illuminating afterward and an appendix of tale types which provide valuable background information on the tales and the history of retellings, but it is the poetry itself which continues to sing long after the book has been closed. Readers will contemplate how folklore and fairy tale can be used to reflect and inform human experiences, but they will also relish the pure emotion embedded in the joyful and heartbreaking words that dance across the page.

Jorgensen forces readers to interrogate the interpretations of old tales in poems like Snow White Goes Gray and Bluebeard, and she juxtaposes folkloric monsters and maidens with real life trauma and human experience in poems like The Ogre’s Heart and Snow White and Rose Red in Orlando. She provides several treatments of ATU 510B (The Dress of Gold, of Silver, and of Stars) and ATU 451 (The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers), highlighting the fluidity of meaning embedded in each tale. My favorite poems include Walking on Knives, a Little Mermaid retelling that sees the protagonist strike a deal with a sea witch to earn a tenure track position at a university, and Selkies which speaks of “Sleek swimmers who carved through water, / Carved a place inside a heart and home, / Then re-skinned themselves, glinting away from shore.”Jorgensen’s poetry combines thoughtful ideas with gorgeous language, and I found myself equally compelled to linger in the verses and hurry to turn the pages so I could discover what literary magic awaited me behind the next door.

The Thorn Key: Fairy Tales in Verse is a collection that belongs on every fairy tale lover’s shelf, and its combination of pain, trauma, transformation, and beauty will beckon readers to swim in its poignant metaphor and imagery. It is a volume I will return to often. I love it! You can find it here, and you can watch The Fairy Tale Magazine's interview with Dr. Jeana Jorgensen on Author Talks here.

Kelly Jarvis works as the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has also appeared in A Moon of One’s Own, Baseball Bard, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers, The Chamber Magazine, and The Magic of Us. Her debut novella, Selkie Moon, publishes in June, 2025. You can find her at Kellyjarviswriter.com.