Writing and
Education
Autobiography
Challenge
Considering
Conclusions
Considering
Introductions
Four
Meanings of Life
Godot
and the Great Pumpkin
A
Major is More Minor Than
You Think
The
Poetry
Process (A look at 4 versions of a poem.)
Thoughts
About
Picking
a Major
Quick
Points About Education
Quick
Points
About
Writing
Reading
Poetry
and Cloud Watching
Revising
Revision
Reviving
Experience
Reviving
Symbolism
Using
an Audience
Videos
What
Makes a Story True?
What's the Subject of This Class? (Being revised.)
Why
Write?
Writing
and
Einstein (The Difference Between Information and Meaning)
Writing
and
the
Goldilocks Dilemma
Links
to
Other
Sites |
Writing Poetry:
Four Drafts and a Look at Process
by
Forrest D. Poston
The
drafts
below are by no means all the drafts done. I have eight or
so still
around somewhere, and they show evidence of others that
haven't
survived. The last date notation is 3/16/95, and the poem
was published
in "Block's Magazine" in Spring, 1997, but I wouldn't go
so far as to
say that revisions are over. I keep going back to these
drafts looking
for ways to improve this piece, but I'm also looking for
other
branches, other ideas for new writings. Writing always
opens
possibilities that can't be explored in a single piece, so
the more
writing the more possibilities.
Tracing this process backwards, the earliest date notation
is 11/02/92,
but that's on a draft that already says "variation." I
don't think
there were many previous drafts, but something came
before. One of the
verbal inspirations came sometime in 1991 when one of my
composition
students took her first shot at writing poetry. Her poem
contained the
phrase "liquid whispers," which I did and do adore. It
rolls around the
mouth and off the tongue so very well. I pointed out the
phrase and
suggested we both try coming up with a poem based on those
words. It
was near the end of the term, and I moved on, and she
drifted into the
Land of Former Students.
The
poem is adapted from two experiences. One was in the
spring of 1982,
and the other goes back to autumn of 1975 or spring of
1976. I did say
adapted. The poem isn't "about" those experiences. When I
first started
writing poetry (during my second time around as an
undergraduate), I
thought there was a direct line from experience to
inspiration to poem.
Most of my writing came when a few lines appeared in my
mind at some
odd moment (in class, bending over the water fountain, or
sitting on
the toilet---where the first four lines of my first poem
found me).
Within 20 minutes to about 2 hours from the first flash, I
had a poem,
and I thought that messing with the inspiration would ruin
the
expression----experience to poem equals truth. Excuse me,
that's
"Truth." I wrote a lot about Truth back then: discovering
Truth,
knowing Truth, being true to Truth. Adolescence lingers
for some of us.
We
have no material except experience, but that's a very raw
ore requiring
refining, distillation, and application. Perhaps there is
meaning in
experience, but if so, it's at an unknowable level.
Experience is an
event. That much we can handle (in theory at least), but
meaning is an
expression of pattern, an connection between events and
time. But how
can we pick THE pattern out of all possible patterns and
say this is
THE meaning. If you can conceive of the complete universe
across all
time and understand all the relationships, then fine.
You've found
meaning. Perhaps that's what enlightenment really is, and
maybe two or
three people have managed it. Then there's the rest of us.
Let's
shrink the image. Consider a blank sheet of paper. For
many writers,
that's the most terrifying image. While blank, it contains
all
possibilities, all possible patterns. Infinity sits there
in front of
us--and laughs. Put two dots and you can draw a line,
three and you
have a triangle. Add enough lines and you can play connect
the dots to
draw just about anything, but each one of those dots each
a choice made
out of the infinite, a pattern selected from the infinite.
You've
selected and created meaning out of the possibilities, but
to create
meaning you've had to temporarily deny all the other
potential choices.
That's why we get phrases like existential terror. If
there is no
meaning except that which we impose, then we have definite
potential of
absurdity, and a lot of existential writing looks at the
negative
aspect of absurdity. You're born, you die, it all goes on.
What's the
point, and can there be a point? Ah, but absurdity has an
upside as
well. In one "Calvin and Hobbes" strip (and I suggest you
read every
"Calvin and Hobbs" strip and book you can), our characters
wake to find
fresh, untracked snow covering their world. With no
tracks, no trails,
it's like an infinite world. It's an unwritten page.
You've got a
choice. You can look at it as way too much and crawl under
the covers,
or you can look at it as adventure, and head off on your
sled with,
"Let's go exploring."
Experience is Playdough. Turn it, twist it, pull it,
nibble it. Maybe
we can't handle the infinite all at once, but each
experience gives us
a tangible slice of infinity to play with. It's the
world's greatest
toy, and the joy of growing up is you can learn more and
more ways to
play with it if you choose to do so.
Enough theory. Let's look at poetry instead.
VERSION ONE
Liquid Air
The air is liquid at four
In the morning, when even
the
Half-grown leaves of
spring
Merely whisper gently in
their
sleep.
The high tide of night
that
Might have drowned
spirits
Too far from shore, now
ebbs,
But even the first
False dawn has yet to
Scratch its pink
revelations
Across the untainted
horizon.
That's how the work stood
as
of 11/10/92. Some things to note:
The
visual appearance is boxy. Up until this point, all my
poems looked
this way, but two friends suggested playing with line
breaks more,
trying to begin and end each line with a strong word. It
was advice at
just the right time. Trying to begin and end with a strong
word makes
you much more aware of your language and forces you to
tighten up
weaknesses that might have slipped past.
You
can also find a lot of overwriting in this version:
"Merely whisper
gently," and two unnecessary uses of "even". Overwriting,
especially
too many adjectives and adverbs, usually tells you that
there are too
many weak verbs and nouns. What my high school English
teacher adored
and raised my grades for was really bad writing. More
about that a
little later.
You
may also noticed that the orignal phrase "liquid whispers"
has already
been separated by this time. Somewhere I had a choice
between my
orignal inspiration/intent and the crafting. Go with the
crafting as
long as it doesn't say something you really don't mean to
say. In
version two, keys changes are in blue.
VERSION TWO
Muskingum Hilltop
This air is liquid
at four in the morning,
when rooms are dark,
sidewalks empty
and the half-grown leaves
mutter gentle
nonsense--
When the spirit can
safely
cease
treading the now ebbing
night
But the first false dawn
has yet to scratch
its faint pink
revelations
across the invisible horizon.
Titles are fun. Each poem has so many potential titles, it
gives the
writer a lot of room to play, but each title affects the
rest of the
poem because it sets some of the tone, attitude, and
expectation for
the reader. Liquid Air was a fun, oxymoronic title and it
put the
emphasis where I originally felt it, that special quality
of air on
some spring pre-dawn mornings. Changing to Muskingum
Hilltop puts
everything in a specific place, a change emphasized by
changing the
opening word from "The" to "This." The poem isn't dealing
with just any
time and place. This place, this moment is the important
one. There is
something about this particular here and now that's
important. Thinking
in those terms made me look at one of the source
experiences more
closely, and I pulled in the details about the rooms and
sidewalks.
The
section on leaves got some serious trimming. "Half-grown
leaves of
spring." Is there any other time of year you would expect
half-grown
leaves? Redundant, not emphasis. Now that they are
muttering gentle
nonsense, I've completely broken with the inspiration by
cutting
"whisper," but mutter and nonsense work better together.
Whisper
anthropomorphizes the leaves too much, but I think "mutter
gentle
nonsense" plays with that idea. They almost sound like
they're
whispering, almost sentient, but it's really all in the
mind.
The
treading spirit section was one of the most difficult, and
it still
doesn't work in this version. It took the most work, but I
recently
realize that it's the crux. That will come when I talk
about the
"final" version. There's also a one word change in the
last line going
from untainted to invisible. That spot also went through
quite a number
of variations, and I still have some doubts. Either
there's still a bit
missing, or maybe there's another poem waiting to branch
off at that
point.
VERSION THREE
Muskingum Hilltop
This air blows liquid
at four in the morning,
when windows are dark,
sidewalks empty,
and the half-grown leaves
mutter gentle nonsense --
When the insomniac soul
ceases treading,
but the first false dawn
has yet to scratch
its faint pink
revelations
across the invisible
horizon.
By
this point there are fewer changes, or at least most of
the changes
involve smaller areas. I suppose that's a good sign, but
at any stage
you have to be willing to cut or change whatever requires
adjustment.
At this point (and in the next version) I'm still
tinkering with the
first line. Having "is" as the first verb in the poem just
didn't cut
it, far too weak. I went to the basics and asked myself
what the wind
actually does. Fortunately, I had sense enough to continue
looking. I
used a similar process with more success when considering
the dark
rooms. I pulled up the memory and took a closer look. Take
yourself out
in the dark and look at unlit rooms. You don't see the
rooms because
even with a bit of moonlight or a nearby street light, the
outside is
at least a little lighter than the inside. Those windows
are sheets of
shiny darkness, scarey in a way because things that are
dark could be
anything. Nothing may be the most frightening thing in the
universe. I
also like the shade of alliteration you get with "when
windows." You
should be able to have some fun reading poems out loud.
Get used to
playing with sound and letting it help you tinker with
form and
content, and remember that sound affects meaning (the
meaning your
reader creates).
That
middle section finally came into focus for me with the
word insomniac.
After all, we've got someone on the sidewalk at four in
the morning.
That's either an insomniac or somebody getting up way too
early. Again,
there's some alliteration to play with, though some people
don't
consider insomniac to be a "poetic" word. That's fine.
They don't have
to use the word in their poems if they don't want to, but
poetic is a
matter of taste to some degree. It's even more a matter of
context. In
this context it's an even better choice than I realized,
but that comes
in the closing discussion.
VERSION FOUR
Muskingum Hilltop
This air soothes, liquid
at four in the morning,
when windows are dark,
sidewalks empty,
and the half-grown leaves
mutter gentle nonsense --
when the insomniac soul
ceases treading,
but the first false dawn
has yet to scratch
its faint pink expectations
across the perfectly dark
horizon.
Smaller and fewer changes yet again, and those were
actually spread out
over about 3 revisions, with the last dated change at
3/16/95. Every
change matters (or it should), but these were the ones
that I think
finally made this poem fall into place, a stronger, more
effective
focus. I continued playing with that first line, following
the same
path seeking precision. When the air "blows," so what? Air
blows hot,
cold, soft, hard, most anytime of day or night. What was
different?
What was it about that air, that time? "Soothes." It's a
tricky line
because it looks like the air soothes the liquid. Watch
the comma.
Yeah, sometimes punctuation really is as important as
teachers like to
think it is. Poetry requires precision, so each word,
punctuation, and
break should be sensitive. Of course, the biggest
difference between
is, blows, and soothes is that soothes tells you something
is wrong.
Someone needs the soothing. It also matches with gentle.
The
person who disliked my use of insomniac claimed that it
sounded too
harsh. Everything had been softer, more comforting up
until that point,
but insomniac didn't fit. It changed the feeling. She was
right, of
course. The feeling does change at that point. There is a
shift, a
horizon, but that's much of what the whole poem pivots
upon. I didn't
do it intentionally, but the crafting brought it into
being. That also
leads to changing revelations to expectations.
Something
will happen because we are at a threshold, but revelations
contains a
little too much certainty, perhaps a shade too much
optimism,
suggesting that something will definitely be revealed with
the dawn.
Expectations means maybe. There is the hope that something
will be
revealed, but hope doesn't always have much effect on
reality. The sun
will rise; the transition will occur. But will anything be
revealed or
changed by it? Unknown. The horizon that went from
untainted to
invisible to perfectly dark gives no clue. It repeats the
blank
darkness of the windows (hey, I just realized that
connection was
there).
"Perfectly
dark" also plays with tradition (and you study tradition
partly so you
know how to play with and twist it). Traditionally perfect
has good
connotations while dark has negative connotations. I
happen to have a
higher opinion of darkness than I do of perfection, but
that has no
effect on what the tradition has been. And we end with
"horizon," one
of the few words that was unchanged, even in its
placement, throughout
the process. Turns out it's the key word. Everything is
about between,
moment of change, threshold, transition. The horizon is
that line
between land and sky, day and night, where you are and
where you are
heading. Sometimes the change is positive, sometimes
negative. Most
often we don't even know when it happens, but there is no
moment quite
like the instant before the unknown becomes known when
hope and fear
balance. I didn't know it, but now I think the poem was
always headed
towards horizon. I just had to come up with all the words
to get there.
As
talking with my students helped me see this poem more
clearly, I was
also seeing one of the major patterns of my life. In many
respects,
I've lived in between moments, socially, economically,
almost everyway.
Also, I've had a tendency to wait for those few key
moments at the
threshold when life focuses and becomes most intense. They
are
important, but the most difficult thing in life is living
well and
fully during the most ordinary moments. The great
potential in crafting
your writing is that you'll also be able to craft your
life. If you can
get yourself to see it more clearly, you can become more
aware, and
while awareness has its problems, it also means you live
more fully.
Creating poetry, you can also create yourself. Whether
that's an
incentive to write or an incentive to walk away is up to
you.
Back to the Home
Page
E-mail
|
Back to the Home Page
Other Essays and Poetry
Something
Somewhat
Vaguely
Like a Resume
Being
Like
Children
The
Blessing and the Blues
The
Cat With a Bucket List
David
and the Revelation
The
Dawn, the Dark, and the Horse I Didn't Ride In On (an
odd, meandering, semi-romantic story)
Ghost
Dancer
in the Twilight Zone
The
Hair Connection and the Nature of Choices
The Mug,
the Magic, and the Mistake
Trumpet
Player,
USDA Approved
Videos
Poetry
Selected
Poems
The
Poetry
Process
Writing by Current or Former Students
Ms.
Write Meets Her Match in Jr. Ms. Write Now
by Heide Perry
I'll
Just
Have Cats
by Cara Hummel
Toys
to
Toys
by Allyson Bowlds
Scribbles
and Bits
Links
to
Other
Sites |
