First Manuscript Report for 2007

Yesterday I had 5 manuscripts rejected. Alas, 4 more went out today.

Outstanding submission remaining at end of year 8
less rejections through 1-12-07 -5
new submissions through 1-12-06 + 4
-----------
Outstanding manuscripts currently 7

Deep breath

I won't say I'm in a bad mood, but I not exactly chipper either. I've had two grueling days at the office. Then today we were informed that our long standing casual Friday has bitten the dust.

Then let me heap a little more on the pile. This weekend I sort of hit the skids with writing. Everything seemed forced and it bugged the hell out of me. It has been quite a while since I have been in a writing funk, so I suppose I should be grateful for the nice run. No, that is not how one looks at this. Instead, it is like the zit that is bigger than your face.

I'm trying to calm myself down and remember that I've lived through this before and it will surely happen again. So take it in stride and just keep writing. Crap and all. it will work itself out.

Donald Hall is coming into town this month. I'm looking forward to hearing him.

I have a KC Metro Verse meeting tomorrow night.

I've got two places I need to get material off to by the 15th.

Just need to keep myself focused, meet my goals for the month and just write, knowing it will work itself out sooner or later.

Allowing Poetry to Speak to You

When I saw this quote, it touched a nerve within me that rang all sorts of bells and whistles...

"A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice." -Anthony Hecht

This takes me to the core belief that I have about the issue of accessibility in poetry and why I believe we should not have to defend poetry that is outside that nice clean little cozy realm of accessibility.

In fact, I hunger for poetry that is more then a read it through once and be able to say, "that's nice." I much prefer to allow the poem to speak to me than for me to read it as though it were a Dick and Jane reader and presto it is all perfectly clear at that period at the end of the last sentence.

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?
Resolution :: another plowed under into the ground
Happy :: Birthday to me
Bubbly :: Champagne music of Lawrence Welk
Kiss :: sweetheart roses with a kiss of baby breath
Leather :: camera gear - on a strap - over the shoulder
Fancy :: guppy fins with rainbow
Pages :: blank pages stare back at me
Stupid :: idiot was one of his favorite proclamations, and he should know
Apologize :: sorry, sorry, a thousand times over
Secrets :: held tightly in a vest pocket

In The News

• Holiday Greetings from the U.S. Army - US wants its officials to ‘die again’, apologises
• Poetry: electronica style [story]
• Montana's first poet laureate is unpaid, she said she is not impoverished as a result [story]
• Before 'Howl,' the hospital [story]

Just a few bits of news on this Saturday.

The Writing Process

In reading another poet/blogger post this week I realized something. Sometimes I am all over the map in process. The post I am referring to is by Kelli. Her post tells of one way to write poems, the process she employs.

Kelli's process itself is not revolutionary in my eyes and I sure most who have written for any length of time will recognize the process. I don't use it universally but more often than not it is a version of what I do. There are still times I try to force the issue, which is to say I sit down and say to myself, "let’s write a poem about "XYZ" and I struggle through the end to write something I am most of the time not totally happy with. Still, out of hard headedness or whatever, I will try this from time to time and with rare exception, frustrate myself and to a less than desirable end.

The aspect of Kelli's approach that impressed me was her organization in working from an "In Process" file. That is where her developing or embryonic poems are. A sort of purgatory for poems (perhaps it is the Catholic in me that identifies with this) from which she will return to cull ideas and rewrite, moving them out of the file when they become full fledged poems.

The process of writing about whatever comes to your mind and moving forward with it is in fact the process I most often employ. My problem is that I have gotten away from doing a lot of my writing one the computer. Imagine that! It is not that I am trying to step backwards in time, but rather that I often write these poetry beginnings in my journal. I suppose that there are two major reasons for this. One is that the competition for the computer at home is great. You know the movies where the family has one bathroom and four children only one of which is a boy? The male family members find it challenging to eek out a few moments in the morning for themselves. Actually, that is not just a movie, but my life for many years. Now it is the same pattern with respect to the computers in our household.

I do enjoy writing in the journal. It is handy and has become a near appendage to my body. Still, the organization issues associated with it are problematic at times. I can, and do go back through it to rework stuff. But this is not a smooth process and going back to even older journals that have been retired to the bookshelf presents another whole dimension of juggling to find something vague in my memory from 6 months or a year ago.

I may have to start trying to transfer the journal work to the PC on say a weekly basis and then try Kelli’s process.

Any others want to be brave and share their formulas for successful poetry writing?

Happy New Year!

Even Barry is ready for the New Year. He handed me his New Years Resolution list this morning. It reads as follows:

1. I will exclude the cats from my diet.

2. I will not slobber on my toys I bring to you to play fetch with.

3. I will not covet the cat's food.

4. I will not steel your witting and publish it, but if I do, I'll split the royalties 80-20. 70-30? Ok, 60-40.

5. I will not use my cute look when being scolded or redirected.