Sunday, March 28, 2004

did I answer the question?

I think I didn't really answer the question, "Why do I think the poem finished?"

When a poem doesn't seem finished it has a missing piece quality, a where's-the-rest-of-me gap. This is talking back from a result. I say it seems finished. I look at it and try to figure out why it seems finished where the other versions were unfinished.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

what you end up with

I ended up with something I like. Whether it rose up from the depths as my metaphor had it when I was struggling with version 5 or whether it was the stone that broke its surface that allowed a reformation into a thing that seemed right, dunno. There have been times I've revised a poem where it seemed I was merely clearing away junk that was obscuring what the poem really was. There have been other times, and I think this was one of those, where the poem just didn't have the right chemical bonds and needed to be smashed in order for the parts to shift around and find their true complements.

Here's the question. Are these the same poem?:


1.

Let me hold your hand.
Let me hold your hand somewhere.
Somewhere in the house.
In the house on the beach with the rain falling.
The rain falling like coins from a slot machine, splashing.
Splashing onto, out of, splashing against.
The riches of splashing, the gold of the river, the silver.
Silver without light, the hard sharp edge of worth.
What's worth it, what's worth darkness, what's the crash out of darkness.

Let me hold your hand.
Let me hold your hand where it is in the cold room in your lap.


2.

Crash upsets the table of values.
Echoes caught on one wall, struggle there.

The dent in the seat cushion begins its rise.

Wealth of one shadow.

The full room, made of old materials.

Light, thrown from the body, bunches on the floor.

Window, open a crack, lets in color
rain has been going over.

River responds to this stone.

Offer me the hand that is colder.


*

I'm not at all sure they're the same poem. That the second owes its existence to the first isn't the answer. The second is exploring territory I've lately been poking about -- the juxtaposition of elements that are related by leaps of imagination. The first, written roughly 7 years ago, is part of what I was doing then -- building elements one from the next via repetition of words from the preceding line. The latest version (#2 above) has no repetition. #2 does include some of the imagery from #1 -- rain, cold, river, hand. "Crash" has gone from "crash out of darkness" to "Crash upsets the table of values" ... and from the end of the poem to the beginning. Then one might do a reading for meaning, right? Do the poems share a meaning? Both seem to seek a human grounding -- the held hand -- in a dark/shadowed, cold, broken (crash, splashing against, struggle, thrown) world.

Why do I think the poem finished? I do think it finished. I'm quite happy with it. That happened all of a sudden. Less than a half an hour after the poem seemed nowhere. The final version is largely the same as the version immediately preceding. Of the final version's 10 lines 8 are exactly or almost the same as lines in the preceding version. Yet they seem different to me. Is it that the order has been changed? That's part of it. "Offer me the hand that is colder," is now the last line. In the preceding version three lines followed it. It seems to me the final version echoes the first version in the request for the hand, that it seems most appropriate it be the poem's last need.

Is it the white space I've allowed in? In the final version most of the lines are also stanzas. In the preceding version there are three 4-line stanzas. The images, the propositions have space to assert themselves, be independent. In the larger stanzas the lines seemed more hurried, their connections forced. The final version emphasizes the parts, the brokenness. It wants more attention on the effects of each line.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

version 6

Crash upsets the table of values.
Echoes caught on one wall, struggle there.

The dent in the seat cushion begins its rise.

Wealth of one shadow.

The full room, made of old materials.

Light, thrown from the body, bunches on the floor.

Window, open a crack, lets in color
rain has been going over.

River responds to this stone.

Offer me the hand that is colder.

comments on 5th version

This seems to me just fiddling. I was feeling something coming up in version 4. Then Jack offered his collage thingy. And I liked it about as much as anything I'd done. I toyed with his changes. Present tense. Eliminating these words, those words.

Something's gotta come from inside this. If there's anything inside it's gotta bring its body up. I feel like I'm flicking a fishing line across a dark pond. So far I've made some mildly diverting ripples but I've not attracted any living creatures. Time to heave in a stone?

fifth version?

Worth darkness.
Crash upsets the table of values.
The dent in the seat cushion begins its rise.
Light, thrown from the body, bunches on the floor.

Echoes caught on one wall, struggle there.
Wealth of one shadow.
Window, open a crack, lets in the color
the rain has been going over.

Offer me the hand that is colder.
The cold room, put together out of old materials,
maintains this position.
A river knows its stones.

picking at Jack's version

The dent in the seat cushion begins its rise.
Light, thrown from the body, bunches on the floor.
Echoes caught on one wall, struggle there.

Somewhere in the house
you’ve propped one hand open.

Outside, the rain takes its usual position,
which is worth what it’s worth.

Jack Martin's version

Jack Martin emailed me a "collage" he put together from the versions of the poem so far posted:

Collage of Glenn’s lines

The dent in the seat cushion begins to rise.
Light, thrown from the body, bunches on the floor.
Echoes caught on one wall, struggle there.

Somewhere in the house
your hand props open.

Outside, the rain in its usual position
falling like coins from a slot machine,
splashing onto, out of, splashing against.
The riches of splashing,
that cracked noise.

Give me your hand.
I will hold it in the cold room
while the rain maintains
and the river goes over its stones.

Friday, March 19, 2004

4th version

Worth darkness.
Crash upsets the table of values.
The dent in the seat cushion begins to rise.
Light, thrown from the body, bunched on the floor.

Echoes caught on one wall and struggled there.
Riches of one thousand shadows.
Cracked, the container cannot hold the color.
A window, propped open, and a shiver in its materials.

Give me your hand.
I will hold it in the cold room.
While the rain maintains its grim position.
And the river goes over its stones.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

comments on 3rd version

I think this is the strangest revision I've ever done. I have very little interest in this poem. I am sure I did not when I wrote the 1997 version. There are technical things I was trying -- the building up of elements, the rather banal opening line that wants a new context.

The 2nd version tried to take some of the elements without the structure. Or something.

The 3rd version goes back to the first version, upends it, and tries to go from the bigger "worth" stuff to the smaller "hold your hand." It's ready to conscript abstract terms like "values" and "ideas." I was doing small edits as I created this new version then stopped myself. The goal in this blog project is to present as complete a picture of the process to which I'm subjecting this piece as I can. The piece is getting more interesting in some ways but it hasn't managed to import a heart.

3rd version

What’s worth darkness.
What breaks out of it with a crash that upsets the values
otherwise firmly situated
on the blue seat cushion of a cold chair.
What throws off light, leaving that hard material in a bunch on the floor.

There were the echoes of a splash that moved from wall to wall.
There were the riches of that noise,
what they can be traded for
that will replace the cracked containers.

Let me hold your ideas of rescue.
Let me hold your seas, those you’ve folded in thirds.

Somewhere in the house a hand opens for the receipt.
Somewhere a window lets in fear.

What’s the position of the rain?
What color is the life?

Sunday, March 14, 2004

comments on 2nd version

What to say. It's not an improvement. At least version 1 builds up to something, sorta. But "an inherent worth chews its wound" is no improvement on "the hard sharp edge of worth" ... though both are kinda chewy, which is good. And the ocean folding sheets? It could be fresh if it weren't a one-off, as it is it's desperate and lame. I'll try again tomorrow or something.

2nd version of Aug 9 poem

Somewhere in the house your hand in a relaxed curl.
The rain in its usual position outside.

In the river a coin turns tail, buries its face in the mud.
Deep in the silver an inherent worth chews its wound.

Somewhere in the room my hand closes around a nose.
You can hear the ocean folding its sheets.

revising a poem

OK, let's try the revising thing again. This time let's go for one from August 9, 1997. I find it limp and uninspiring. I can kinda see some things starting to develop, I mean that last line is interesting and the "hard sharp edge of worth" is ... not good exactly but has the beginnings of something.

Here it is, as it appears in the notebook:

Let me hold your hand.
Let me hold your hand somewhere.
Somewhere in the house.
In the house on the beach with the rain falling.
The rain falling like coins from a slot machine, splashing.
Splashing onto, out of, splashing against.
The riches of splashing, the gold of the river, the silver.
Silver without light, the hard sharp edge of worth.
What’s worth it, what’s worth darkness, what’s the crash out of darkness.

Let me hold your hand.
Let me hold your hand where it is in the cold room in your lap.

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

yoga tired

Phew. I feel half asleep. I went to Scottie's yoga class after work yesterday. Wears me out. More the day after than immediately after. Came right home after work today and took a little nap. Feel sorta like I didn't totally wake up from it.

I'm listening to a mix CD I made from CMJ music. Mostly 1998. I knew a few of these folks before I started going through these old CMJs: Apples in Stereo, Love Spit Love, Violent Femmes, Radiohead, Bruce Cockburn. But most of them? Who: Julie Plug, David Garza, Money Mark, Jen Wood, Jonathan Fireeater, Sugarsmack, Dump, Kastin (not from CMJ actually, but a Putumayo collection), Portastatic (also not from CMJ, some other sampler), Garageland, Tuscadero, The Connells, Royal, Foil, and Anne Summers.

Have I heard of Money Mark before? Or does the name just remind me of Marky Mark? I could run google searches on these people, I suppose.

Julie Plug is a Bay Area band. Filipinos. Here I thought it was girl named Julie Plug. Dunno anything about the girl lead singer but I like her sidelong look.

David Garza is Mexican American. Hm. I'm having a multi-cultural experience? Yeah, yeah. Aren't we all? Yeah and he's kinda cute.

Money Mark's site has a real cool looking homepage (and it just took over my entire screen) but there doesn't seem to be much inside. A few pictures. Track listings for his CDs. Big whoop.

I'm listening to a Jen Wood song I just found on the web. I don't like it as much as the one I got from CMJ.

Let's do one more, then call it a night.

It seems "Jonathon Fireeater" should be written "Jonathan Fire Eater" and it's not the name of one person any more than "Julie Plug." I'd kinda guessed that. Seems they've broken up, too.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

2nd version (see immediately below for 1st version)

She is going to fly
and I am coming to earth

a stone stood before the door
then stepped aside

the wings she’d torn from her back
caught on the whiskers of the grass

I drop my feet in the muck
and go on rolling, tail tight held by these small teeth

my eyes closed to keep the soil out of them
hands released from bars

she clings to the arms of sagging chairs
her balance resistant, distant

we will come back this way to look in the windows
but the soul won’t be in the room

it will be paying out a thread we follow
at the first tangle I have to sit down

outside it is cold as a little white fish bone
a new home overhead

heaven opened for the whole body

by hooked toes to the cracked skin
of the cedar a cicada’s husk clings until

a finger tears it loose
not one of these shoes fits, she says

loose skin but not empty

1st version

She is going to fly
and I am coming to earth
a stone stood before the door
then stepped aside

the wings she’d torn from her back
caught on the long arms of the grass
I leave my feet in the muck
and go on rolling, my tail tight held by these small teeth

my eyes closed to keep the soil out of them
my hands released from the bars
she hangs onto the arms of aged chairs
her balance resisting from a distance

we will come back this way to look in the windows
but the soul won’t be in the room
it will be paying out a thread we will follow
at the first tangle I’ll give up and sit down

outside it is cold and thin, as a bone exposed by a flood
we put our grooved wheel to that rail
and the motion makes a soothing racket
a new home overhead

heaven took in the whole body
if it hadn’t, who could believe
a cicada’s husk clings by hooked toes
to the cracked skin of the cedar until

a finger dislodges the grip
none of the shoes fit her feet, she says
too much skin is empty
how can you hold it in now

revising

I was looking at a site for a new publisher and they say they are looking for "really really good poetry," whatever that means, and I got to wondering what poems I have on this computer, the Mac. I've only composed a couple on it and typed in another handful. The other computer, the PC, has lots of poems on it but no longer has internet connectivity so I can't email poems from it.

I opened a poem file, thought, that's not bad, so closed it and opened another. As I was reading I was revising in my head before I'd gotten more than a few lines into it. I thought, I should read the whole poem through first, but the changes seemed more important than the idea of fairness to the original vision. So I started right in changing things. I've thought about revising a poem in the blog. Post a poem. Then post a new version of it, then another, until it stops. I'm going to do that with this poem.