82º ~ preparing to weather at least seven days in the high 90s with the heat index tipping toward 110, the humidity reaching “unbearable” stages, still from inside the house the sun and the breeze cheer me

Welcome back to a more positive outlook, dear reader.  I did take the weekend off from poetry, spent it with Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (though I still have the last section to read), the Chicago Cubs (1 for 3), housekeeping, and collaging.  Still, as I read Strayed’s intense memoir, I found myself jotting notes in my journal about the angry sisters.  One of those notes prompted today’s draft.

That note was the phrase “had we been born boys.”  While gender is not at the forefront of Strayed’s story, which is about navigating the loss of her mother, the undercurrent is filled with gender, as Strayed remarks again and again how few women are also hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, and as she comes to terms with her own use of sex as a way through grief.  Somewhere in the reading I thought of the angry sisters and how they wield the tools of their father (hammers, saws, axes, etc.) with ease, and how influenced they are by their father’s view of women.  (And here, some autobiography seeps in, as, yes, I am one of three daughters and no sons.  Yet, I’m happy to say that the angry sisters have taken on a story of their own that deviates wildly from mine.  For example, anyone who has ever seen me try to use a hammer would testify that I am a total klutz and unskilled at building/fixing things.)

At first, my draft began with the above phrase as the first line, but it quickly became apparent that the phrase would become the title of the draft.  The rest of the poem is just 15 lines, three stanzas of five lines each, each line roughly eight syllables, give or take…I’m no formalist.  This line and stanza length presented itself quickly and wholly in the first stanza, and then I had to tinker to get the next two to fit, but that tinkering helped me focus my images.  The three stanzas imagine how the sisters’ ease with their father’s tools, the influence of his “stash of girly magazines,” and their quest for vengeance would be different if they were born male.

My worry about this draft is that it all seems so completely obvious, a feminist cliche.  Time will tell, and I have to remember Anne Lamott’s encouragement of shitty first drafts!

73º ~ they say the heat & humidity will arrive by Monday with temps in the upper 90s and humidity bringing the heat index up into the 100s; for the next 3 days, though, oh, the glorious late spring delirium remains, window thrown wide open in celebration

A scene from Star Wars.

75º ~ the beauty of spring continues to linger into what is normally something like a hot summer already in early June, partly cloudy but no complaints, calm air, everything lush & green

I confess, I have never wrestled in Jello.  I confess, I used that as the title to this post to get your attention.  I suppose I could have said, “Catching a Greased Pig” as well.  Still, there is something to be said of the analogy between wrestling and revision.

Again today, I turned to my “In Progress” folder and called up each of the drafts I’ve worked on since November.  That’s right, November.  I truly don’t believe there is a right or wrong number of days to wait before starting on revision, as long as there is some kind of waiting period to clear the mind.  Some of the poems I’ve just worked on have been in the folder for six months; however, that is more of a result of my academic life & responsibilities than of any need to wait that long.

The waiting period is crucial, though, because it provides perspective.  The first poem I worked on today was drafted on 14 November 2012.  This poem is one of those that arrived with great energy, and I’ve continued to remember the opening stanza without really trying to memorize it.  Based on the copies I have printed out, I worked on the poem again in January 2013, making a major change in point of view to the second half of the poem.  All this time, as I’ve been haunted by that opening stanza, I’ve also known, I mean known, that something wasn’t quite right about the poem, and yet I could see the potential.  I knew what I wanted the poem to do (in an abstract way) but I hadn’t figured out how to get it there.

Yesterday and today, I returned to it again, and something simply clicked.  I had to cut away some lines I thought I loved in the second stanza and add something new there.  I had to change the lineation in two or three places.  As many of you know, I’m fond of indenting and creating white spaces; however, there is a craft to this as well, and while it might look like the poet has simply used the enter and tab keys willy-nilly, this is not the case.

To revise well, I have to have a little distance from the initial rush of the first draft so I can catch my breath.  I have to be able to listen, really listen, as I read the draft aloud over and over, tinkering with the linebreaks and the word choice.  The poem really does seem to know where it wants to go, but I have to be able to hear it.

And that, my friends, is the most frustrating thing to read or hear when you are trying to figure out how revision works.  Still, after years of writing, I have to relearn this with every poem.  At a certain point, the poem and I are wrestling with each other.  We grapple with sounds and breath, and eventually, neither of us wins but through the struggle the poem is made.

I’m thrilled to say that I have six poems now, each in its own folder, that seem nearly ready to go out and meet the world.  These will be the first six poems since I finished the sickly speaker series last fall.  I’m hesitant, of course, but also eager to see what reaction they might receive.

68º ~ some kind of blessing after the storms, a cool, cool day with very little humidity, tho lots of sun and a sweet, sweet breeze

A weekend trip to the in-laws culminated in returning home to find a wee bit of storm damage.  This was the subtle kind of damage that didn’t make itself apparent right away.  No, instead, we surveyed the yard and the roofs and found all intact after Saturday’s severe thunderstorms and strong winds.  Only later did we learn we’d suffered the dreaded “surge” and our heating & A/C unit’s “board” was blown, so no fan action.  Also, our refrigerator was fried and something in our alarm system is messed up.  All other major appliances intact, and the fridge was 10 years old.  So, repairs and replacements are in the works.

In happier news, the new issue of Anti- is up, and it is stellar, simply stellar.  I’m so happy that one of the sickly speaker poems makes an appearance.  In fact, “The Alchemy of My Mortal Form” is one of the first of the poems from that series.  You can read about the drafting process for this specific poem here.

Today, my plan is to sort through the current drafts of any angry sisters poems and see if I can revise & polish any of them into submittable form.  I’ve got most of the sickly speaker poems that haven’t already found a home circulating, and to tell the truth, I’d sort of forgotten the next step with the angry sisters.  Their poems were simply gathering weight.  Now, onward with the whittling and the tweaking.

Hope everyone has survived storm and fire and all our other current plagues in one piece.

81º ~ a stronger breeze than yesterday, cloud cover, the chance of storms

Reader, today, I spent the morning at the desk by finishing my read-through of a manuscript for which I’ve been asked to craft a blurb and then crafting said blurb.  I’ve written a handful of blurbs over the last couple of years, and it dawned on me today that nobody every talked to me about writing one.  I’ve gone blindly forward, so I thought it might make a good blog discussion.

First, what do you all think of blurbs?

If I know a poet personally, I skip the blurbs. If I’ve read previous books by the poet, I skip the blurbs. If I’ve read a poet’s poems in the journals and those poems inspired me to buy the book, I skip the blurbs. I don’t live in a large enough city to support large selections of poetry at the bookstores, so I don’t tend to browse the shelves, where reading blurbs might come in handy. Instead, I often use the blurbs to check my own reactions to a book I’ve just finished, especially if I’m having doubts about my own reading of the poems.

Lately, I have taken to glancing at the writers of the blurbs, as the blurbers are often from the same aesthetic as the writer of the book.  For years when I was just starting out as a poet, I didn’t understand the incredible diversity in poetry today; after all, we don’t label and shelve books of poetry based on their approach, language poets on the bottom shelf, new-formalists on the top, narrative poets using the American vernacular stretched through the middle, etc. Lately, though, as I’ve built my personal library of poetry books and as I’ve read and read and read as widely as possible, I’ve come to know the groupings more by instinct and muscle memory than by any outward label.  This can help me place a poet new to me before I open the pages, but it guarantees nothing about how I will receive the work.

So, what do you do if someone asks you to blurb?

First, I’d say only say “yes” if you can honestly say you like the work and feel a kinship for it.  No, you don’t have to be exactly the same kind of poet as the writer of the book, but a connection of some kind is necessary, lest the reader of the blurb feel fooled.  When I was asking for blurbs, Mary Ann Samyn was so smart.  She asked for a copy of the manuscript and the right to decline after she’d read the poems.  (This is something I forgot until just this moment!)

Also, consider the time it takes to read a pre-publication manuscript and craft the blurb.  Recently, I’ve had to decline some requests in order to focus on my own work.

In any case, once I’ve said yes and received the manuscript, I read through and take notes on the themes that pop to the surface.  I’m old school and need to have the manuscript in hard copy, so I take my notes on the title page, which I’ve clipped together with all of the front and back matter.  That way, I’m reading just the poems, undistracted.  As I read, I turn over each page into a “read” pile on my left.  When I come to a poem where I feel certain lines really speak to the major themes of the book, I underline and annotate on that poem.  When I flip it over, I turn it crosswise to the rest.  That way, when I’ve finished the whole stack, I have a dozen or so poems that I pull to re-read.  These are the poems I use as references for my blurb, along with the notes I’ve taken on the title page.

In terms of logistics, if the publisher or poet has given me a word-length or other requirements, I keep those in mind as I start to draft.  I keep it in present tense, like a good literary analysis instructor.  Not everyone does, but I like to include at least one short quote in the blurb.  For those people who use blurbs to make choices about what to buy/read, I think this is a great way to offer a snippet of the poet’s voice.

Once I have a draft, I email it to the poet and ask for his/her feedback.  I am completely open to any response, and I’m willing to scrap it and start over if the poet feels I’ve misrepresented the book in any way.  After all, it’s an honor to be asked to blurb and I wouldn’t want to let the poet down.  After the poet and I have settled on the draft, it goes to the publisher who may or may not want revisions (most often cutting due to space issues on the cover).  Again, I’m willing to work out whatever is best for the book.

So, what are the benefits of blurbing?  1) I get to read the manuscript before almost anyone else.  2) I get to exercise those analytical skills that I don’t use when writing poetry.  3) I get the free publicity of having my name on the back of someone else’s book.  And who knows?  Perhaps, someone will read the book and my blurb and look up my work.  4) I get to give back and cheer on another poet.

Any blurbers out there with other thoughts on the topic?  Feel free to leave a comment.

80º ~ seriously cannot believe how lucky we have been with the weather these past weeks, all sun, breezes, and green today, windows open, open, open!

Monday, I took the day off from reading/writing and spent time with C.  We aren’t really holiday type of people, so this meant going out to lunch and running a few errands.  I ended the day with drinks with a good friend.  Perfection.

Sadly, this all translated to yesterday being a total disaster work-wise.  I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing.  I was fragmented.  The time at the desk was near to torture, but I kept my BIC (butt in chair) and muddled through.

The pay off?  Today was great.  I already knew my goal when I sat down: Submissions or Bust!  I did manage to get three submission packets put together and sent out to three journals.  I’ve definitely scaled back on the number of poems I send out, and I’m okay with that.  Slowly, slowly I’ve learned which journals are the best fit for me and which journals I really want to see my poems appear in.  All that accrued knowledge means I’m more apt to shake off a journal I once might have submitted to because I now know my chances are slim to none, my work simply not matching the work of the journal.  I’m also always open to submitting to a new journal if the mission statement/call for submissions seems to fit.  I know a lot of folks like to re-submit to journals that have published them in the past, and I do some of that; however, I like the broadness of being in many different types of journals, scholarly & independent, online & in print, magazines & anthologies, etc.

After I ran out of steam on submissions, I turned to book #2, which has languished in semi-finalist, finalist, “great manuscript but we have to pass” purgatory.  One of my missions for the summer is to split the manuscript into two chapbooks.  This morning was my first pass.  I approached it with this attitude:  I’m not going to labor over this.  I’m going on pure instinct.  With that in mind, I flipped through the pages and pulled (yes, I have to use hard copy for this!) all the poems that fit the fairy tale & saints profile.  Then, I did one more pass, asking myself if any others felt like they belonged with the tales.  Now, I have two stacks of 20 and 30 poems each.  Next, I’ll re-read and re-order before creating new computer files.  Luckily, I’ve already done a lot of research into chapbook publishers, so I should be ready to send soon.

As for the fever book (book #3), it’s out there.  I’ve sent it to a dozen publishers.  Now, we wait.  And wait.  And wait.

And the angry sisters lurk, scuttle, and plot on the sidelines.

71º ~ a cloudy day, not unwelcome, keeping the heat at bay, tiny breezes, squirrels run amok

Last month I wrote about drafting several poems in response to a girl gone missing here in Arkansas.  This past week, her body was recovered.

The angry sisters began in poems about an injustice done to them, personally.  Now, they seem to be morphing into three angry women seeking justice for other girls & women.  Are these political poems?  Maybe.  They are certainly responding to real events, although not naming those events.

Again, I have Traci Brimhall to thank for a draft. (I thank all the poetry gods & goddesses that Traci and I have become friends!)  I keep coming back to Our Lady of the Ruins, in part because of the collective female speaker Traci uses in certain poems, and in part because Traci once told me that a poem of mine needed more ugly in it.  I confess, I shy away from the ugly.  I paint it over with pretty words, all the while trying to describe it.  Somehow, the angry sisters are forcing me to face the ugly.

In particular, I thank Traci for her line, “Spring returns with its terrible resurrection,” from “A Year Between Wars.”  I had already scribbled out a dozen clunky, long narrative lines about the discovery of the body last week.  I really have nothing against great narrative poems; however, I am not at home there.  I like the fragment and the white space, the hint and the leap.  Still, these angry sisters sometimes drag me back to narrative.  In any case, after setting my journal aside in disgust, I went back to Our Lady and discovered the line above.  Instantly, I went back to the journal and wrote this:

At six o’clock we watch as spring
resurrects the bloated body of a lost girl.
No live footage. A map of the river.
The girl’s familiar snapshot smile frozen
on the screen for months.

I continued to draft another twenty lines or so, realizing that my earlier draft paid too much attention to the girl…for the angry sisters, I mean.  For them, the focus is always on “the sinner,” the one who harms the girls or women the sisters seek to avenge (note: not always a man).  In the journal draft, the sisters are angry because the man who killed this girl has already killed himself, so they can’t do anything.  In the journal draft, they build an effigy and destroy/burn it, my idea being that they would offer the ashes up at the girl’s funeral.

Somehow, when I went from journal to computer, I remembered Traci urging me to get to the more ugly truth.  The title of today’s draft, “Desecration Song,” may hint at what the sisters ended up doing in the computer draft…yep, digging up “the sinner” and tearing apart his actual remains.  They then douse him in kerosene and light him on fire.  The funeral of the girl never comes into it.  Instead, the draft ends, “Our punishment is knowing we will always be / too late to play the role of saving graces.”

I have no idea if this draft will survive in this shape and form. Time and revision will tell.