After much wasteful procrastination, Puntitas has had a productive weekend. She wrote a new poem last night, one of those poems that come of themselves with a little prodding, the kind that can stand and walk and speak in telegraphic sentences when they’re born so they can go into the mail with minimal nurturing at home, and today she has gotten over the last of the hideous hurdles in the damn poem she’s been working on forever—well, off and on since Easter more or less.
Both poems have been interesting experiences. The one I wrote last night was inspired by the Independence Day celebration, which has always struck me as far more Dionysian in nature than Halloween or even Carnival. I’ve never quite been able to explain why that is, but eight years ago, when the good home schooling Mennonite neighbors argued over whether to let their screaming five-year-old go ahead and light a Fountain (Mom was for allowing her in order to teach a lesson about obedience and parental judgment while Dad objected on the grounds that the resulting emergency room trip would ruin the party and spoil all the food), I came close to putting it into words. This year, with all the forest fires and talk of global warming, I found the perfect context. I didn’t write it out there and then because my mother and I were having such a nice time laughing at the neighbor’s silliness and munching on big pieces of fresh fruit, that getting up for the note taker only to tune her out seemed crass. Later, of course, the moment was gone, and I didn’t know if I could recreate the piece.
Sunday night, when I did write it out, the poem was different from what I had imagined. While I remembered the general movement of the piece, I didn’t remember all of the elements that got me from the opening image to the climactic ending. I also didn’t know how to prepare for the final image and overall conceit without giving it away or making the poem feel like a riddle. What I did instead was to suggest the conceit in two places and organize the details to do the rest of the work. I won’t know whether I pulled it off until I read the thing relatively fresh.
One pleasant surprise was the closing image. I couldn’t use the one I had planned and was floundering around for a direction to take the poem when I read what I had and realized it was already somewhere. I did a little tweaking to make the ending less abrupt and went back to work on making the conceit stand out enough. Then I was done.
I hope it’s as complete as I think it is the next time I work on it. There is one image I really like, but I’m nervous about it not quite blending in with the rest of the poem. I can tie it into the general conceit, but that may be more trouble than it’s worth. I’ll just have to wait to decide.
The other poem has been a struggle. I’ve stuck with it because I really like its potential. I like the idea, the images, and the general narrative arc. Done right, it can turn out to be an excellent piece, but maintaining a balance between exposition and metaphor, resisting bathos, keeping two ideas separate while using one as a conceit for the other—all have been extremely difficult for me. On top of all of that, I’m not sure that I have the right life experience to write it. It’s about marriage, and I’ve based it on conversations with and observations of some of my married friends, but having never been married or involved with anyone for a long period of time, I’m nervous that I may not be true to the speaker’s feelings.
During our last tussle, I did some rearranging. That made for a stronger draft, but it also created a massive gap that called for the speaker’s history and a link to both the present situation and the metaphor for her marriage. Since then, I’ve been researching the linking details and thinking about how to integrate them into the details of her history.
Today’s mission was to fill in that gap even if the work was far from polished. The gap has definitely been filled. Again, it’s a matter of waiting a few days to read the poem fresh and have a more objective sense of how to direct my revisions. At this point, I’m thinking it would be helpful to have someone read and comment on it. I’ve got one or possibly two people in mind, and depending on the next round of revision, I may ask them.
I think the next time I work on my book, I want to read the really long poem. The last time I read it, I thought it was just about done. The changes I made involved cutting out excess in the final section. I was only concerned about an important transitional point, where too much snipping could affect pacing.
Puntitas reads _Quiller Salamander_ by A. Hall and _The Zookeeper’s Wife_ by D. Ackerman.
