A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Forty-Three

 I have been feeling rather productive today, though it has come out in work besides new poems, but that is not the worst thing.  I spent a good deal of time working on other projects, including preparing a chapbook manuscript that I've been constructing for some time now.  The book has an intricate structure that involves two sections, with the work in each section reflecting off of the work in the other, and I am using various aspects of the individual poems to denote connections between specific pieces, to make the mirroring between the two halves apparent for a reader in an intuitive way, as opposed to stating the schema and hoping that it connects.  The goal is to leave the reader with a cohesive experience, one that carries from the beginning to the end in the piece, and which demonstrates a care and intent in the entire work, as a whole.  Many of the best poetry collections I have read are books that do not have a cohesive quality, and which stand out because the works in them shine as individual pieces, though they do gain power from being set together and will always be interrelated as works of a single poetic (or editorial, in some cases) vision.  At the same time, I am considering the work as a submission to a press that is not aware of me or my writing, and I am hopeful that a carefully constructed collection will prove to be more powerful as an initial experience in that context.  As well, I think that their is something that may appeal from an editorial perspective in seeing a collection that is cohesive and well thought out, that it may demonstrate a type of craft that is not as often seen.  That is, of course, assuming the work which the collection is built upon is of quality itself, and so I am working from a manuscript of poems that I think are individually ready, and I am hoping I can create a setting that allows them all to shine together, showing qualities that none of the facets would reveal alone.