Where I'm Calling From

99 deg ~ come on, just one more little degree and we get trip-digits, full sun, of course

My title is a bit misleading today, as it should be in the past tense and the negative: Where I wasn't calling from, but I love the Carver allusion. I've been busy with family and friends, and I'll give you two photo hints as to the where.

Yep, you guessed it: Iowa and Illinois. My man and I had a great time seeing friends (hey, Sean-Kirsten-Harper!) and family (hey, Longhorn family!).

Poetry has gone by the wayside a bit, first due to health issues and then traveling. Posts may be sparse here until the first week of August as I try to finish up July with friends and an attempt to recover my health to 100%. Never-fear, Dear Faithful Readers, the Kangaroo will rise again next month.

And the Winner Is...

77 deg ~ rain storm cooled, cloudy skies, heat rising through the end of the week

And the winner of J. Michael Martinez' Heredities is... (imagine your own drumroll)... Sherry O'Keefe, the one who was new to the comment field and felt least likely to win.  That makes me happy.  I also love the name of Sherry's blog: Too Much August, Not Enough Snow.  (I think I'd flip that around, though.)  Sherry, I'll be sending an email your way to get your details.  Congrats. 


Here's a screen shot of the Random Number Generator to keep everything honest.

Saturday, Again

81 deg ~ heavy humidity and gray skies

Today has been a repeat of last Saturday.  I've been to the River Market for the Little Rock Farmers Market and taken some photos to share with y'all.  As soon as this is posted, I'm starting on REVISION.  However, today, I'm revising the book: In a World Made of Such Weather as This.  For a month or so, I've been mulling over what the weaknesses of the book might be.  It was a finalist several times this year and a semi-finalist as well.  That's encouraging, of course, but also tells me that some changes still might be necessary.  Wish me luck.

the Arkansas River hazy/gray morning

USS Razorback

a piece of the "little rock"

Miss Becky, my peach connection (Crowley's Ridge, AR)

flowers!

early arrival means a lighter crowd, 20 more minutes and the aisles are packed

Something for the vegivores

Quick! FREE Poetry! 5 Days to Enter

83  deg ~ big rain this morning, now gray and breezy with lots of lovely humidity

As a member of the Academy of American Poets, I just received my copy of the 2009 Whitman winner, Heredities by J. Michael Martinez.  I was lucky enough to meet the poet and get a signed copy of this book in Denver at AWP. Now, the book is nearing the top of my to-read pile, YAY!

Good News, Dear Readers!  I'm giving away the copy that just landed on my doorstep.  Please leave a comment below if you are interested.  On Tuesday, July 13, I'll use the random number generator to pick a winner.

What I'm Reading: The Alchemist's Kitchen

83 deg ~ hazy cloud layers keeping the temps down a bit, but with the humidity rising, the mugginess means being outside is not comforting for long ~ last night dramatic black storm clouds & several downpours, but no sustained rain

Today, I've finished re-reading Susan's newest book, The Alchemist's Kitchen, and I'm muddling through how to best describe this wonderfully dense and diverse book. 

First, a little backstory:  I fell in love with Susan Rich's poetry when reading her first book, The Cartographer's Tongue (White Pine Press, 2000).  In particular, the poem "The Mapparium" entranced me.  Susan has lived a traveler's life, working for the Peace Corps and other human rights organizations.  Her poetry blends her love of the foreign with an ability to write of our humanness with empathy.  I highly recommend y'all check it out. 

Then, to my great joy, Susan began a blog last year in anticipation of the publication of the book, and then I was lucky enough to meet her in person at AWP.  In fact, on the day she had her signing, I actually sat down next to her at a panel and met her there first.  Serendipity like that makes AWP the wonder that it is.

Now, to the book, since I feel that Susan is a friend, I'll use her first name, as it seems awkward to stick with the academic standard after I've gotten to know someone. 

While there isn't a narrative arc to the book, there is a clear sense that these exact poems belong together in this exact order.  This ability to weave conversations between individual poems is something I admire and envy.  These poems do consider the international, as Susan's past books have done, but there are also poems that seem more explorations of the poet's current place as a woman in mid-life, poems that question the aging process, especially as a woman unattached.  Like January Gill O'Neil's Underlife that I wrote about the other day, I'm in awe of Susan's ability to open herself, her life view in these poems, and expose what may seem vulnerable to the reader.

To start, here's a bit of a poem that touches on the political, but also shows off Susan's wonderful ability with sound and with details.  It's also a study in concision.  She says so much with so few words.  Listen to the beginning of "Day of the Global Heart":

The way of the heart

is that it shifts --

speaks in lace,

in blood red phrases:

holocausts, amphetamines,

Arctic glaciers.

Wow, just let those lines roll around on your tongue for a while and you should see why I enjoy Susan's work.

I also admire Susan's work with ekphrastic poems.  The second section (of three) is composed of poems inspired by the photographs and life of Myra Albert Wiggins, a woman of the Northwest (as is Susan), whose life spanned the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  I hadn't known of her work, but now, having read the poems, I plan to check her out.  A testament to Susan's ekphrastic poems is that they work beautifully as poems without any knowledge of the art itself on my part.

Finally, there are poems in the third section of the book that feature a speaker heading toward 50 and working through her relationships with men and romance/love, among other topics.  These poems are frank, avoiding the overly sentimental with the gift of grace and wonderful details.  I have to admire one poem in particular because of the underlying humor that Susan brings to the page.  Here is the poem in full.

You Might Consider . . . 

how my long life of losing men

could create a new international sport.

Men lost in the desert, men missing

in action from doorways and all night diners;

men making the most of fire

escapes, service stairs, the emergency aisle

of airplanes like United.  Men

para-sailing from spaceship encounters.

I am accomplished in the world

of the see-you-later wave

as his pick-up truck disappears

traveling on to the next espresso stand.

Something in the curve of my collar,

the cut of my blouse sets them running.

They know they are in the hands of a master.

But when the coffee's on, the pumpernickel

toasted just right, I have to let them know;

I'm actually ready to let them go.

If you're interested in exploring this book more, you're in luck.  Diane Lockward is hosting a poetry salon about The Alchemist's Kitchen on her blog, Blogalicious, right now.  Feel free to head over there and grab a glass of wine and some cheese, day or night.  Check out the interview with Susan and the comments, where Susan is answering questions from the guests.   (By the way, Diane has a new book out as well.  Temptation by Water is on my to buy list, as we speak.)

Support a Poet/Poetry
Buy or Borrow a Copy of This Book Today
The Alchemist's Kitchen
Susan Rich
White Pine Press, 2010

What I'm Reading: Underlife

87 deg ~ hazy sky with periodic bursts of sun through clouds, threat of thunderstorms all week

I am embarrassed to admit how long I've had January Gill O'Neil's book Underlife.  I was lucky enough to win a free copy from January during a promotion on her blog, Poet Mom, when the book first came out.  Sadly, the spring semester got crazy, then my summer went into the health dump, so the book remained unread until now.  However, one great thing about books...no expiration date!

Underlife is a wonderful first book.  The three notes I made in the back of the book were:  plain language, feminine, and unshirking.  All of these are compliments, not detractions. 

First, plain language: O'Neil uses spare, straight-forward language, the language of the everyday, and this fits because these poems are a testament to the everday life of a woman, a wife, and a mother.  The speaker, who holds constant throughout the book, tells it like it is.  There is no pretentiousness here, no trying to impress with elevated and academic language.  In fact, the first poem sets this up for the rest of the book.  I love it so much, I'll include the full text here.

Nothing Fancy

I am from hush puppies & barbecue

from chitlins & fatbacks

hog maws & hog jaws & grits & scrapple.

Outside stands a dogwood tree we have let

overgrow from laziness

& a driveway cracked

with blades of grass.

I am from Rosemary & Stanley,

the last model in the series.

Around our house honeysuckle blesses the air,

seasons the heat of summer into a main dish.

I am a plum black garnish to the day.

Wafts of smoke from pots on the stove

steam the kitchen.

Salt & Pepper stand at attention

next to the potholders on the counter.

Dinner is ready--no time for parsley.

Second, feminine: O'Neil celebrates here all that factors into being a daughter, then a wife, and finally a mother.  While these are poems of domesticity, they are not overly sentimental, and they always pack a punch.  There is wisdom here and a sense that the speaker has earned that wisdom through a life well-lived. 

Third, unshirking: O'Neil doesn't turn away from the beautiful or the less than beautiful parts of being alive in this world of ours.  She broaches subjects I myself have shied away from, afraid perhaps of revealing too much.  Another favorite of mine, one that shows this brave approach, is "What Mommy Wants," which has an epigraph "after Kim Addonizio."  It's a bit longer, so I'll just give you the opening.

I want a pair of Candie's.

Make them cheap and tacky.

High-heeled wooden stilettos

(stiletto, from the Italian word for "dagger"),

white leather upper with silver studs along the sides.

Open-toed pumps, with just enough wiggle room

for my toes painted No, I'm Not a Waitress red.

It's a little odd, how this blogging and Facebook world has brought me more closely into the private lives of many poets.  From January's blog, I know that her children are older now than they are in the poems that are clearly written about them.  I also know that the marriage that is often mentioned in the book has now ended.  I was able to separate the biographical from the poems, of course, but it also makes me wonder what the next book might hold.  I know that I'll be watching to see what this set of keen eyes and brave mind might bring us next.

(Aside, check out this poem-video of "How to Make a Crab Cake," another favorite of mine from this book.)

Support a Poet/Poetry
Buy or Borrow a Copy of this Book Today
Underlife
January Gill O'Neil
CavanKerry Press, 2009

Great Way to Help a Library and Independent Bookstores

94 deg ~ sun with big tufts of clouds, a slight breeze, mid-afternoon doldrums

So, Tin House has a new policy that requires unsolicited submissions to be accompanied by a receipt that proves the writer has purchased an actual book at an actual bookstore.  Kind of cool.

Topping that, in my mind anyway, is Dzanc Books.  During the month of July, Dzanc Books will donate a book to a library for every proof of purchase for books bought at independent bookstores.  Yay!  This supports all of my favorite things: poetry, libraries, and independent bookstores.  Check it out! 

Four for the Fourth

84 deg ~ some sun, some hazy clouds, the whole world gone lazy with Sunday and a national holiday

I really meant to take today off from blogging, but then I came across three things that I felt I had to share.

First is a poem by Luke Johnson who blogs at Proof of Blog.  Luke's poem "The Heart, Like a Bocce Ball" is available on Rattle's blog today with audio.  Do yourself a favor and listen to this gorgeous reading.

~~~~~

Second, thanks to January O'Neil for posting this Czeslaw Milosz poem "Gift" on her blog Poet Mom.  I wasn't familiar with this poem, but it sums up EXACTLY how I feel on this 4th of July.

Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

~Czeslaw Milosz

~~~~~

Third, if I haven't mention Matt Kish's blog, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby Dick, then I've been remiss.  Today's drawing for page 297, pictured here, is my absolute favorite so far.  Recently Kish found out that Tin House is going to publish the complete project.  I have tried to read Moby Dick three times in my life and have failed each time.  (My junior English teacher in high school told us she hated the book and wouldn't put us through the torture of reading it.  Beware teachers, the power your words might hold over a captive audience.) However, I plan to buy Kish's book as soon as it hits the stands.  If you just want to look at the drawings and not read the blog, go to Kish's website: Spudd64. 


~~~~~

Fourth, a confession, I am jealous of those who can sketch, draw, and paint.  I follow a blog called Urban Sketchers, and I think how wonderful it must be to be able to carry home a piece of art of your own making any time you venture out into the world.   Perhaps in the next lifetime, I'll have more talent there.

Summer Harvests

80 deg ~ cloudy, a closed in feeling to the sky

This morning, I'm offering poetry for the eye.  Enjoy the pics of my trip to the River Market Farmer's Market in Little Rock.  I've got revisions on the mind now that the kitchen is stocked with my summer favorites: peaches, watermelon, and sweet corn, all grown here in Arkansas (I'm picky that way!)

Perhaps this last one deserves a bit of explanation.  The River Market is full of great sculptures, and this is the one I passed on the way back to the car.  May I present, Dear Readers, Count Casimir Pulaski, for whom our county is named.  Apparently, Count Pulaski is known as the "father of the American cavalry" and saved George Washington's life during the Revolutionary War.  I just like the details on the sculpture and his dramatic hair.  (From a distance, I thought the bust might be of Elvis...hee hee).

Rambling, Rambling...Revision

82 blissful, sunny breezy deg ~ near perfect summer conditions

First, before we get to REVISION, the results of my internet rambling this morning: a few links for you.


~~~~~

I'm curiously drawn in by this visual description of Chopin's Nocture, Opus 27 #2.  I'm not skilled in music, but I did take several music classes in college, studied piano and flute as a girl, so I get the idea of intervals that this project uses.  I wonder if there is some way to diagram a poem this way?

~~~~~

This one has been around the blogs lately, but if you haven't checked it out, it's worth it for a laugh.  SlushPile Hell is a blog where a "grumpy agent" posts an excerpt from a query letter that failed and then his lovely, sarcastic remark.

~~~~~

I've been reading Jim Brock's blog, God's & Money, for a few months now.  Today's post concerns applying for a Florida Arts fellowship and also contains some musings on the NEA fellowships.  It's a great straight-forward post, but it's the ending that got me laughing in agreement.  Brock writes, "And what of the usual of not getting the money?  I always eagerly read the list of fellowship grantees, and yes, I am most often Miss Congeniality, really happy for these poets because we so seldom get this kind of recognition, and sometimes I am Susan Lucci, wanting to kick the winner in the groin all the while I smile bravely."  Hee Hee.  I'm usually Susan Lucci, especially in the book contests, and I totally agree with this statement.

~~~~~

Oh, I don't have the link or remember which blog it was on, but yesterday I read a post in which the author complained a bit about the use of "Dear Reader" in blog posts, after having watched Julie and Julia and noticing its use there. It niggled at me a bit, since I do often use this construction.  However, I stand by my use because when I do include that direct address, it happens naturally and is heartfelt.  A bit too sentimental, Dear Gentle Readers?  So be it. 

~~~~~

And now to the meatier bit here, my revision process has begun.  A bit delayed by health issues, but begun nevertheless.  As many of you know, I spent two weeks in June doing a draft-a-day.  I ended up with 12 successful and complete drafts.  A great result...much self-congratulation ensued.  Now, the work of revision begins.  I read over all of the drafts yesterday and found some of them weaker with more soft spots than I remembered during the rush of creation.  When I began the project I hadn't really thought about what would happen after.  It's a bit more daunting to have a dozen drafts needing attention, rather than my normal two or three that might be waiting for help.  I did a quick shuffle and piled them from "best" to "worst" based on yesterday's read.  However, nothing jumped right out in terms of revision.  I think I'll have to simply select one poem and cull it from the herd.

I must admit that I was not feeling in the revision mood this morning.  However, two bloggers have come to my rescue.  Fiction writer, Danielle Newton has a post up about working on revising her novel.  Just reading about her process provided some much needed motivation.  Also,  Joanie Strangeland has a new post that complements an earlier one with some notes for revisions.  If nothing else, this is a tangible place to start.  Many thanks to both Danielle and Joanie for taking the time to blog and share their experiences!

New Poem Available Online & Family Business

80 deg ~ mostly sunny, a good bit of a breeze

Last week I reported on an acceptance from Glass: A Journal of Poetry and how the editors really helped me find the finishing touch for this poem.  In the wonder that is the digital age, the poem, "Flood Plain," is now available!  This is the 7th issue from this journal (Volume 3: Issue 1, technically), and I'm really impressed with the poems and the layout.  I like that the contents remain visible on the margins so you don't have to use the back button to get to the next poem.  Hope you'll check it out.

~~~~~

As for the family business, I may have blogged about this before, but if so, I've lost track.  In some weird twist of fate, I have two cousins (one maternal and one paternal) who also became bona fide writers.  I say this is a twist of fate because we do not come from a long line of literary families.  We are distinctly middle and working class folks who were born in smallish cities in the Midwest.  We come from grandparents who were farmers, carpenters, electricians, etc.  We come from parents who moved off the farm and into the business world that supports farmers.

All this surfaced again today because I ran across my cousin, Ryan Longhorn's blog.  Ryan and I had lost touch, as he is a bit younger than me and I left Iowa while he was still in junior high, but we recently found each other again on Facebook.  I've know about Ryan's fiction writing for about ten years, but it's been great to start a bit of a dialogue with him again.  He has a horror story about agents and NY publishing houses, but that's his story to tell.  For now, here's his blog, Universal Acid.  I have to warn you, Dear Gentle Readers, that Ryan is in no way the prim and proper Blogger that I am.  He's letting it all hang out...as we used to say, back in the day. 

My other cos. is Marta Ferguson, a poet, a sci-fi writer, and an editor.  Marta and I are closer in age and it was Marta who offered me a room in her house in Columbia, MO the year that I left my professional life and decided to apply to graduate school.  Marta's chapbook, Mustang Sally Pays Her Debt to Wilson Picket, is available from Main Street Rag and is definitely worth the read!  Again, a bit less prim and proper than me, I admire Marta's willingness to tangle with many of the issues I might shy away from in my own work.  By the way, Marta does poetry manuscript consultations through her editorial business Wordhound, if any of you are interested.  She definitely helped me get a handle on Blood Almanac before I sent it out into the world.

So, as the song goes, "We are family!"  I wonder if some future grad student might someday write a paper on our family ties and what literature we made of it.  I'll leave you with this diagram from the University of Manitoba that details how to count cousins.

Summer of the Ill Winds

a wonderful morning thunderstorm and now 82 blessed degrees at 11:26 a.m.  ~ amen

Summer 2010, the 39th Summer

Summer of the Ill Winds
Summer of the Sick Bed
Summer of the Unfortunate Luck
Summer of the Fever Sweats
The Lost Summer
The Body Rebellion Summer
The Summer I Lost My Health and Regained My Appreciation for Breathing without Coughing

Well, I've been absent again, Dear Readers, without planning and with great frustration.  Just after I finished my two weeks of drafting I came down with a head cold.  No problem, I thought, it's the summer.  I can rest and drink OJ and take over-the counter meds and it will be gone in 48 hours.  Not so, not so.  The head cold traversed my sinuses, then headed for the ears and throat and finally settled in my lungs.  The coughing which will not let me sleep began a week ago.  Four days ago, I "woke up," really just roused myself from my sick bed where I'd been able to doze off and on during the night, to discover, I'd developed the stinking pink eye.  Yes, you can give yourself pink eye, no need to be exposed to another victim...just manufacture the illness yourself.  So now, I'm officially diagnosed with bronchitis and conjunctivitas and am on the dreaded antibiotics I'd tried to avoid. 

The worst of it is the frustration with my own body.  I feel as if it has betrayed me this summer.  First the back issues, now the upper respiratory stuff.  I live a fairly healthy life...no smoking, very little drinking, lots of sleeping, and ok, maybe not enough exercise, but that was changing due my physical therapy for my back.  As a good friend, who is suffering her own ill-fated summer, just said in an email:  what angry god have I offended?  (I paraphrase). 

Really, I feel like the weak secondary female character of a Victorian novel.  You know the one, the one who succumbs to the fevers and the chills, who faints at the slightest upset and takes to her sick bed to be nursed by our heroine, the strong and undiscovered beauty whom the hero will eventually recognize as his soul mate, leaving the simpering, whimpering weakling to his lesser peer. (Pictured here is The Sick Woman, by Jan Steen. RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM from a book on Flemish furniture.  It's odd that the chairs are detailed there as well, but the picture sums up my past weeks so well I grabbed it.)

Needless to say, poetry has been sidelined for the time being.  I haven't had more than a few hours of undisturbed sleep at any give time for the past week, so my brain is muddled at best.  Yesterday, I was able to read a beach book and keep up with the plot so I'm hopeful that poetry will be back on my agenda in the next few days.  Be patient, Dear Reader, and I will try to transform my sickness into health.

The Good News Email Strikes Again

88 deg ~ full sun, almost no breeze at all

Last night saw the good news email striking again.  Glass: A Journal of Poetry accepted the poem "Flood Plain."  What's interesting is that this is the one poem that I attempted to write to fill a spot in my current manuscript.  I've written on this blog in the past about being in awe of people who can write toward a project or know that they need four more poems for this section and 2 for that.  In any case, this is a poem that I felt I needed to write for a section of my manuscript to be complete, but it has not come easily.  I've always loved the poem, but I kept fiddling with it over the last two years, knowing something wasn't quite right.  Luckily, Holly Burnside and Anthony Frame, the editors of Glass, put their fingers right on the problem and suggested a revision that does wonders for the poem.  Once again, I am indebted to the heroic actions of underpaid and underpraised editors who do what they do simply for the sake of poetry.

Way back in the day when I first started submitting, there were very few, if any, journals that did business by email.  Instead, everything was stuffing envelopes and paying postage and watching the mailbox.  Part of this pattern meant that acceptances and rejections arrived at a certain time of the day that was fairly reliable.  A poet could gird herself for the thin envelope of rejection and do a little dance of joy when a fat letter arrived with a contract inside.  Now, emails arrive at any time of day or night, and while I'm happy to have the news in a more timely fashion and without the payment of postage, a small part of me misses those expectation-filled walks to the mailbox as fewer and fewer journals send word by post any longer.

At this point, I have the fewest poems in the past three years out in circulation.  Luckily, this is because many of them were accepted, although few were sidelined along the way...benchwarmers waiting for me to take another look and see if I can get them fit enough for the first string.  This is all the incentive I need to head into my revision process on the drafts I completed just recently.

Day Fourteen: Draft-a-Day

91 deg at 10:15 a.m ~ mostly sunny, very little breeze to speak of, a thunderstorm last night that brought some rain

Day Fourteen: Dear Reader, we've reached the finish line!  Woo Hoo.

Last night, I noticed a photography book I had purchased back in April but hadn't had time to really delve into.  I placed it on my desk with the intention of it serving as my inspiration for today's poem.  That's a bit more premeditation than I usually resort to, but I knew today would be my last day and the temptation to skip the writing would be even stronger than yesterday.

The book is Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild by Michael Forsberg with essays by Dan O'Brien, David Wishart, and Ted Kooser.  The University of Chicago Press published this in 2009.  Knowing that many people have differing definitions of the plains and the prairie, I first checked this book out from the public library to see if it had anything about Iowa in it.  The book is divided into three major sections: the northern plains, the southern plains, and the tallgrass prairies.  The last third of the book does indeed contain information on my homeland, so I went ahead and invested in it.  I'm glad I did.  Forsberg's photography is amazing, and the quality of the production is worth the price tag on the book.  The essays are rich and nuanced, well-written, too.

But what it's all about today is the poem.  I started by flipping through the book and reading the captions that accompanied the photographs and skimming the essays for now.  Every once in a while a phrase would sing out to me (i.e. "following the prairie bloom" and "kettles of Sandhill cranes") and I'd jot it down in my notebook with an attribution if I took it from one of the essays.  Eventually, I drafted six lines based on a picture of Sandhill cranes roosting on the Platte River during their migration.  Sadly, these never rose beyond pure description.  There was no heft to them.

I moved on and became transfixed by an image of a northern harrier at her nest.  In fact, I was able to find nearly the exact image from the book, available on MF's website, link through the image and here.  The image of the northern harrier soaring is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and taken by Frank Schleicher, link through the image and here.  Again, I started with description in part from the photograph and in part from the details provided by the Cornell Lab's website.  These lines too failed to lift off.  It was only when I combined some of these lines with some of the inspiration phrases from the book that I got something going.  The draft is called "Prairie Conflict" and addresses one of my main internal dilemmas.  I am an advocate for restoring the native prairie and plains and protecting all the plant and animal species that have been decimated by agriculture; however, agriculture is what makes the economy of the Midwest run.  It's what supports my parents and my family, even though they are now removed from agriculture as their primary means of income.  Frankly, the towns of the Midwest live and die by the success or failure of the farmers that surround them.  So, in some ways this is a political poem for me, but the issue isn't black or white.  The poem focuses on the harrier, a species that has come back from being endangered, its recovery in large part due to conservation efforts.  And the poem also acknowledges the value of farming.  It's true that farmers and hunters are often the best conservationists, but the world's hunger and the expansion of cities seem to be growing at a rate that eclipses even the best efforts of conservation.  Perhaps this is more of an essay topic, but for now, it's a poem.  My favorite lines of which are: "A northern harrier hunts on the wing and haunts / the air with a piercing, descending scream."

So, that's that.  I now have 12 drafts to show for my two weeks of purposeful writing.  This is the first time I've ever imposed an assignment like this on myself.  It makes me wonder.  I've spent lots of my writing time in the past drafting lines and crossing them out and not producing anything, happy to come up with a viable draft once a week.  What would happen if I imposed this assignment on myself each time I sat down for writing time: no email, no blogs, nothing else until you get a draft on paper.  I still worry about the material being forced.  I also will need revision time and time to read more, which this drafting has cut into.  As always I come back to balance...something it seems I'll always be searching for in every area of my life.

A huge THANK YOU to all of you, Dear Readers, for taking this journey with me and providing your support.  I probably could have done it without knowing you were out there, but I bet it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, and I might have drifted off the plan more easily with no one there to hold me accountable.

Day Thirteen: Draft-a-Day

87 deg ~ was gray and cloudy an hour ago, but now the sun has cleared the air, a breeze stirs the trees

Day Thirteen: It's a good thing I chose to do this project in the summer when the days stretch out with little structure.  Had a hard night's sleep, not quite insomnia, but fitful.  So, another late start, although C. assures me that this kind of thinking should only apply during the school year.  What does late mean when there's nowhere to go and no one to whom we are accountable but ourselves?  (A wise man, that man I married.)  Still, it's hard for me to shake off the self-judgment.

When I finally made it to the desk, I must confess, Dear Readers, I was ready to throw in the towel on this draft-a-day experiment.  Really, I already have 10 new drafts...a nice round number...why not stop there?  However, I'd woken up thinking about January Gill O'Neil's book Underlife, a copy of which I'd won on January's blog almost six months ago, I think, maybe more.  Like most of the books I acquired in the late winter and spring, Underlife was relegated to the summer reading pile.  In order to get started today, I thought I'd take a peek inside...now I can't wait to read the whole thing!

I did start today by gathering up words from the first few poems in the book and then I went ahead with the random generation of pairs.  On the third pair, I knew I'd struck pay dirt: rage and hourglass...fraught with imagery and meaning.  Two more components entered the mixing pot:  one) a poet friend had recently shared a true litany poem, with her repeated phrase being "breath of..." and two) my fitful sleep.  I ended up writing a draft titled "Litany for the Insomniac" with the repeated phrase being "Suffer the... ."  Of course, I was thinking of the biblical "suffer the little children to come unto me," although there's nothing religious in the poem.  It's written in couplets, with the second line of each couplet indented.  Right now my favorite is the first, which I must thank January for inspiring.  "Suffer the rage of the hourglass, / its body smacked hard and cracked."  There are four words from my Underlife word bank in this group: suffer, rage, hourglass, and cracked.  Throughout the rest of the draft, I picked a few more words from the word bank and did some pulling from thin air as well.


Litanies, a type of catalog poem, can be fun to draft, but I have my reservations.  It's harder to tell when the poem is finished.  In fact its harder to discern the real skeleton of the poem, since one could go on creating more repetitions all day.  As my creative juices were drying up this morning, I tried to force this draft to go a particular way.  I was stubborn; it was stubborn.  Eventually the draft won and I had to delete one couplet that I really liked but that didn't fit the skeleton that took shape. 

I am beginning to wonder if these drafts are becoming forced or if the pressure-cooker of the 14-day program just produced results.  Time and the revision process will tell, I hope.  As always, I'm thankful for those of you who stop by to read and to comment.  One more draft to go.  Official count: 11 drafts in 13 days.  Woo Hoo!

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Underlife
January Gill O'Neil
CavanKerry Press, 2009