Saturday afternoon....

"Tears roll silently down the hill in neutral."

Why your mind should not meander when driving

You ever wake up and have a crazy notion about something? Okay, mine actually came during the drive into work. For some ungodly reason I thought, I should write a memoir. What has possessed me to think this I don’t really know. In fact, possessed might be a good way to view it.

I have had an interest in doing sort of a biographical poem at some point and have actually made some stabs at it, but they have all been drafts that have gone nowhere. My vision of the poem was much more abstract in nature (surprise!) and it's likely that unless someone knew me extremely well, they would perhaps not even recognize me in the poem.

Getting back to the memoir, it’s not that I lead a life that people are just dying to read about; in fact my contemplation of this is largely for personal reflection. The only way it would be remotely interesting to others was if it were written by David Sedaris.

Muldoon to edit New Yorker poetry | News | Guardian Unlimited Books

Muldoon to edit New Yorker poetry News Guardian Unlimited Books: "Paul Muldoon has been appointed the poetry editor of the New Yorker. He is due to take over from Alice Quinn, poetry editor at the weekly magazine for 20 years, in November."

I am a bit surprised by this, though I suppose there is no particular reason to be. Another example of globalization and in poetry I believe that is a positive evolution. Muldoon is rather somber about this business of poetry and that should fit well with The New Yorker. Will it greatly change the substantive nature of poetry in the magazine? Only time can tell.

2 < 33

When tragedy strikes, there are often words that follow. Words of sorrow, of anger, frustration or guilt. There also comes a silence or at least the ineptitude to adequately verbalize.

Kelli yesterday posted a link to an article from the Roanoke Times about a poem by Bob Hicok, poet, and Virginia Tech English professor. In the poem, Hicok writes about shooter Seung-Hui Cho and the professor's feelings of guilt for not doing something to stop his former student who on April 16 took 33 lives including his own at Virginia Tech. Hicok was of several professors in the department to voice concerns about Cho after reading a play the student wrote in Spring 2006 about a student who plans a mass school shooting. Nothing came of their expressed concerns.

This and other incidents and in some cases non-incidents have sparked a debate about where one crosses the line in writing literature between artistic expression and cause for concern.

Paradoxically I see this in Hicok's own poem with a painful examination. In a most powerful twist, these words ring out of his poem titled "So I Know"

Maybe we exist as language and when someone dies
they are unworded. Maybe I should have shot the kid
and then myself given the math. 2 < 33
I was good at math. Numbers are polite, carefree
if you ask the random number generators.
Mom, I don't mean the killing above.
It's something I write like "I put my arms
around the moon."

There is something to be said for putting our arms around the moon.

words

How to fill the gap

I read something yesterday that suggested that there was a gap between what the traditional publishing world is doing and the kind of content that people get excited about. The statement not surprisingly came from an article on self-publishing.

Of course, we would all like to believe that we are that writer yet to be noticed by mainstream publishers and are certain as the night follows day that there we are just one of many worthy writers that have been overlooked, and perhaps hang to the belief that one day this fact will be history and that both of us (the right publisher who realizes this error and of course our self) will ultimately be rewarded.

Do publishers really not know what they are doing? To be certain, publishers in their vetting process do pick many books that go nowhere. However, the bottom line is these publishers do operate as a business enterprise and they do make money or they cease to exist. They are clearly also picking winners. The person exploring this topic suggested that the rise in Internet usage will actually force even traditional publishers to find ways to enter into non-traditional publishing. In doing so, will this bring greater respectability to both the Internet and self-publishing?

There are to be sure, problems with using an Internet model for traditional publishers and keeping profitability a part of the picture. I am not implying those problems are insurmountable, but how many people actually pay to read something on the Internet? Such a model would likely have to include advertising.

Some mainline publishers are however entering the print-on-demand markets, and those are likely more promising. I believe most avid readers of literature and poetry still want something in their hand as they read and don't want to scroll down a computer screen. Such print-on-demand would still carry a brand name that is equated with some degree of professionalism. Hence, there would continue to be a gap between what such a company offers and what you or I create ourselves privately in a POD format.

If there is a big gap between what traditional publishers are putting into the market place and what the public really wants, how do writers reach those people to fill that gap? This is the challenge for private publishing.

words

Curling with Cathy

Sunday was a very refreshing day. My wife and I tried something different. We took a Curling lesson. There is far more athleticism involved than you might imagine by watching it. It was fun trying something totally different.

We also went out to eat at Hash House A Go Go located at Legends. We walked around and checked out shops. It's a pretty cool place. Basically spent the entire day together which was the best part.

Weather has been so nice these past few days. Cooler and we actually had a few showers... just the right amount and it didn't get muggy or anything.

Poetry Revision Part 1

Rewrites, revisions, whatever you want to call them require a writer to examine something already committed to a page. Early on, I probably viewed revisions in more a negative light than a positive one. Not overtly, because I don't recall it as such and I don't recall thinking about it much at all. I am sure now, thinking back this was a subconscious thing.


For the young writer I think there is an urgency to create work. There were times I knew a rewrite was necessary and I did them. There were no doubt times I didn't, yet should not be satisfied. I suppose it is a part of maturing as a writer that we learn not to be in such a rush. Awkward as it may be, I am learning this. This is an especially difficult lesson for one to learn when they did not start writing till later years and feel their life rushing along before their very eyes.


I did a survey of readers on my blog as to how many times on the average they would rewrite a poem. The results are of course not representative of a scientifically controlled survey, and the response was not near as many as I would have liked, so we are dealing with a very small universe.

The Question was this: On the average, how many revisions do you do of poems you write?
The results are as follows:

• 3 or less 14%
• 4-10 57%
• 11-25 14%
• 26-50 14%
• more than 50 0%

I suppose it should not surprise me that the biggest response came in the 4-10 range. At first thought I would have placed myself in that category based on nothing more than a perhaps less than educated guess. But as I pulled out a few drafts of things I've written more recently, I decided that I really am more likely in the 11-25 range on an average, but closer to 11 then the higher end of the range. I've had a few like one titled Night Wishes that came almost spontaneously and as I recall tweaked I think two words in it from the original draft. Things like this however are rare.

I know people who firmly believe the first thought on paper is the best and don't like to make changes because of the belief that something subliminal has lead them to write a great truth. I find subliminal influence on writing very interesting but I don't subscribe to any notion that there is something sacred about the first thoughts to reach the page.

I have marveled at the assertion by Donald Hall that he has rewritten poems hundreds of times. The poem White Apples about his father's death took him 17 years to write.

I think there is a comfort level that must come only with maturity in writing that allows you to slow yourself down a bit and really look for the right words in the right places in your poems. One of the benefits of getting work accepted in various venues and waiting for them to come out is that it has allowed me not to be in such a hurry to get something new to send out. In fact of my last four accepted poems, two have been older ones that have hung around a while.

More rewrites are not always going to make a better poem but I think some level of rethinking is always critical. In fact I now like to put a poem that I feel is finished back and revisit again a week later. Sometimes what sounded good a week ago leaves you thinking what you might have been drinking when you stopped and put it aside. I have taken the rewrite process to an extreme and found that I was getting further from what I wanted, not closer. There is obviously nothing magical about the number of drafts but I think a willingness to try new language or approach is critical to growing as a poet. Sometimes shaking up the poem by reversing the beginning and the end, or rewriting a first person into another viewpoint.

If I am having trouble getting started with new stuff, I find that it is sometimes go back to old journals and pull out something unfinished, or really rough and work on it from a new perspective.

I've got more to say on the topic but I don't want to unload it all tonight. Besides, I'm interested in other perspectives on the value of revision and the process others use.