I revised ten poems yesterday. Word Raccoon mostly kept her nose out of things while I did, spinning on her pink throne cuddling with her stuffy, Book Goblin.
Ten poems.
By the end, my brain said no more.
Two are still a bit wooly, but those ten were close enough to be shuttled to the ready-to-submit folder.
The most innocent looking one caused me to rethink my writing choices for the day, but I got back on track after wanting to eat all of the chocolate in the vicinity.
(That was WR who wanted to do that. I cannot eat as much as I used to due to this arthritis medication. I’m grateful to be able to do most things again. But could I please retain some appetite?)
WR reminds me she still has inconvenient hunger flares on occasion.
The close revision work I did was aided by my new less heat, more precision rubric. I am sure I will refine that later, but the poems are stronger for it, and that is not nothing.
I cut lines that explained instead of trusting the image. I trimmed heat that was loud but not exact.
A couple of the poems were promoted from micro poems to full with a few additions. I asked a couple of others what they were doing wearing too-large high heels and jagged lipstick. In the end, I was mostly happy with the revisions.
WR got a bit of her own back for being banished from the revision work yesterday: she talked me into going to the gym between the rain drops, promising we could get a Coke Zero after. Once I was at the gym, I remembered we were not planning on going at all.
She giggled and pedaled away on the stationary bike.
The joke’s on her, more structure is coming her way, and she does not enjoy structure. I have created an independent study of poetry for myself for the next three months, focusing on women in poetry.
Deep dives become core, in my experience. I’m irrationally excited.
I’m beginning with Emily Dickinson.
Here’s the mucky structure stuff that WR will ignore but I feel better having in place.
Weeks 1 through 3
Structure
Two sessions per week
Session A
Context
Read letters or a short scholarly essay on Dickinson with focus on theology, syntax, or metaphysics.
Key conceptual moves
Recurring concerns/preoccupations
Philosophical/religious tensions
Session B
Close Reading
Read the week’s poems slowly, twice each. (Ha! As if we will stop at twice.)
Annotate
Verbs
Pronouns
Structural pivots
Where image becomes idea
Restraint
Write on one of those.
Week 1
Compression/Metaphysical “Risk”
Poem Cluster to Dissect (Not new to me, but worth revisiting.)
I heard a Fly buzz when I died
Because I could not stop for Death
My Life had stood a Loaded Gun
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
I watched some YouTube lectures on her yesterday, including a short entertaining one by John Green. The videos have already shifted my viewpoint on Emily. Is she punny? A bit naughty? The imagery in “Come Slowly” is…evocative.
Ok, queen. I salute you.
And the I/eye play in other poems. Clever.
I already admire her microscopic attention to flora. I can’t wait to stand face to face with her via her poems and see what conversations we have.
Show me how you see, I will say as I read closely. (Is there a word for closer than close?) I want to trace her word choices, follow her line breaks, discover her preoccupations.
Not so I can imitate her, but so I can add a lens to my writing.
Intoxicating.
WR is humming with anticipation, wanting to read essays about her and watch videos! She may not like structure, but she enjoys learning, hearing what others think.
Or maybe that’s the shot of espresso in my Diet Coke. (WR wants to ask if they will please, please, stock Coke Zero.)
In the meantime, I just ran into a friend here at the cafe that I haven’t had a sit-down with for a while, and she and I have made plans to remedy that.
See, WR, it does pay to get out of the house sometimes, even on gray days.
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