Revision and Preparations

93º ~ feels like 106º ~ the sun unwavering, cicadas and humidity constant


In anticipation of August 1 and the re-opening of submission periods for a good number of journals (although not as many as will open on September 1), I've spent the morning reading over all the poems I've written this summer. I am happy to report that despite my fits and starts, I do have a solid group of drafts that I think will eventually make it as publishable poems. Given my lack of success last summer, this is a relief.

However, it's been a long time since I've made a regular habit of submitting work, and I have to say, I'm nervous and hesitant. Already, I've received a few rejections of poems written last year, even a few where poems were solicited by editors. I bear those editors no ill will. The poems in Alchemy, the ones that have appeared most recently in journals, bear little resemblance to what I had on hand to send those editors. I'm sure they wondered about the shift in voice, subject matter, and style. I wondered, too. I was lost.

Now that I've found a way to continue working in that baroque colloquial syntax and diction, but to move on from the sickly speaker's voice, I think I might be more on the right track. I think. I'm waiting to hear back from another poet-friend-peer on a handful of poems, and this morning I went about my usual revision routine. It looks like this.

I open my folder of drafts (printed copies of the latest versions). I begin to read each poem out loud, pausing between poems to clear some head space and try to get a new and separate look at each. If after one read-through of the poem I still have confidence in it as a complete piece, I re-read, out loud, for clunky lines, for cliches, for any place I can trim and cut. I make these changes on the computer and print out a new draft. If the poem then seems ready to meet the world, I move it to a new folder that will be waiting for me on Saturday to make new submissions.

[I find it interesting that with the work I'm doing now, work that is more autobiographical, more familial, my biggest fear is in being the wrong kind of sentimental. I never wondered this when working in the sickly speaker's voice, and now I find myself having to navigate that old problem once again. Le sigh.]

In the process described above, there is also a chance a poem will continue to founder. The doubt may still be too strong and the whole refusing to coalesce. In these cases, I simply leave the draft alone after one re-reading. Often, I simply need more time and distance from the piece to understand what it needs. Sometimes, the poem will never make it out of this stage. I've learned to live with this and recognize that the time and effort were not wasted, as I believe:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." ~ Beckett from Westward Ho.