A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Five

 I have another meeting with Freesia tomorrow, so I am thinking about the poetry manuscript quite a bit.  There is a lot of work to be done for it, and I am not yet at the point where it has come together into a clear vision, but I know that it is a process, and I am working my way through it.  I think the next step is going to be starting to find ways to put the poems into groups.  I think of the manuscript as being built from sets of poems, and that these sets then interconnect with the rest of the book.  The poems in these groupings need to be connected in ways that the reader will notice, and making that work will require revision and shaping, but that all has to be in service of something already in the poems, something that will unite them in my thinking, and those connections between the poems are what makes the thematic structure and through-line of the book.  At least, that is the general idea.  Right now, there are quite a few poems that are ready to be part of this book, but I need to figure out how those poems fit together, and finding those smaller groupings is, I think, the key step in that larger journey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem: Neighborhood Inhabitants

Neighborhood Inhabitants There was a fox once, and another time, otters, and now a peacock that we think got lost during one of the storms. She stays down on the other end of the street, though, does not visit us. We have a racoon family that stays in our tree some nights, and there is a baby lizard, a brown basilisk, who we have seen several times. It is not supposed to be here, is invasive and troublesome to the local ecosystem, as are the duck.  I hear there are giant snails now who eat stucco or concrete or something of that sort. I have not seen one, though, I just heard they are here and big as my fist.
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, One-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-And-Seventy-Three

I am still finding it difficult to get back to a more productive work schedule at the moment.  In part, I am sure it is that I gave myself permission to slack off a bit, and it is difficult to walk that back, especially because I am still writing and being productive, even if not to the same degree. I know it would be good to get back to doing more writing, but I also know that I am still meeting my core obligations, even if at a more minimal level.  Really, I just need to make the choice and force myself to stick to it.  To that end, I am planning to at least get back to work on my longer projects again tomorrow, even if I don't increase the poetry output right away.
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Thirty-Three

I received my acceptance to attend workshop at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival next year and am very excited to be working with Matthew Olzmann, a poet whose work I have admired for some time.  He has a rare capacity for being simultaneously absurd and serious in ways that are hysterical, but with devastating insights underneath.  I feel quite fortunate to have the PBPF, and can say, honestly, that each workshop I have attended there has been incredible.  As a person who has taken many workshops in my life, and who often finds them wanting, I am always astounded at the caliber of the classes at the festival, both in the instruction and in the community of poets I have encountered.  I only wish it could be more than just one week out of the year.
Read more