As I was journaling this morning, an idea came to me that I was intrigued by. I was thinking about all the drafts of poems that I have started and squiggled lines through short phrases that once on the page, I decided did not work. There are many such aborted word clusters that litter the pages of my writing journals. They are at minimum, short thoughts that were cast off as unacceptable for one reason or the other. I was sort of viewing them today as like "out takes" from a film.
I am presently working on a draft of a poem that represents an abstract self-portrait. I suppose it was such abstract thinking that allowed me to toy with the idea of creating a poem from these cast off lines from various different poetic efforts. I have of course, in the past, recycled lines that I thought were good but did not work in a particular poem. But this is something different. This is about using only discarded poem parts to create a whole. So I am noting this here as a reminder in the weeks to come to spend some time on this as a new project. Something to do on a rainy day.
I suppose this is probably not original. Anyone else out there tried this?
3 comments:
In two or three (more?) or her books, Mary Oliver has pieces entitled "Sand Dabs". She numbers them. They consist of bits of notes she jotted to herself on her walks. Some of them made it into actual poems, some I don't think did, some perhaps started a poem but didn't survive in the original form once in the poem. Not exactly what you're asking about, but close, perhaps?
I like the concept. I'll have to look for this among her work.
Thanks for the comment.
"Sand Dabs, One" --Blue Pastures
"Sand Dabs, Two" --Blue Pastures
"Sand Dabs, Three --West Wind
"Sand Dabs, Seven" --Long Life
"Sand Dabs, Eight" --Long Life
I'm missing some of her books and assume 4 and 5 are in one of those, but here's a place to start, if you're interested.
"Sand Dabs, Nine" --Long Life
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