A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Eighty-Eight

 I began working on that revision today, though only in small ways.  I read the piece a few times and have made some notes on where I think I want to expand.  I've an idea for a way to frame the whole piece that might work, but I need to think it through in terms of the full structure.  At present, I can see it as a larger shape, but the only part that is fully clear is how to work with the first portion of the poem.  If I were to follow this idea, the poem would become a sort of direct address to a specific figure, almost a letter to them, and the first part would frame what is there against a memory I have from childhood.  That memory correlates well with the poems starting point, but I would need similar movements for other places in the poem, I think, memories or observations that would illuminate other ideas in the poem in the same way.  As well, I would need to do some good research so I can tie it back in to the figure that I would be addressing, in this case the philosopher Simone Weil, and I would want to include her as a presence in the poem if I went in this direction.  The work was initially inspired by a particular essay and is expanding on certain ideas Weil presented, and I don't really need to include Weil in the poem to this extent as a result, but if I choose to compose the piece as if I am talking to her directly, I would want to put those elements into the piece.  I wonder if that might bring in too many other elements, might take away from the initial point of the poem.  I think that I have another idea for what might work, as well, which would stay a bit more tightly focused and not add so much else, but I need to think on it a bit more.  I may try two different versions and see  what works.  I am hoping to get to that in the morning, though I am not always great at getting to work early.

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