Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Poem-a-day
I'm definitely not one of those people who can produce readable drafts day after day for a month or any extended period of time. The people whose blogs I read who do write interesting drafts daily in April really amaze me. I am strongly disinclined to post any first draft I write in an hour or less (really any first draft, actually). If I may borrow from Ralph Wiggum again, and I think I may, revision is where I'm a Viking.
When I write a first draft I typically have a few good turns of phrase and maybe an overall form and rhetorical gist, and then I'm pretty much filling in the blanks between those phrases with any damn thing that pops into my head. I remember reading/hearing of Star Trek: The Next Generation long ago that anytime the writers got to a spot that required a technobabble explanation for whatever the phenomenon of the week was, they would just write "Tech" in the script and keep on going--someone technically inclined got to fill it in. My first drafts are like my version of that, with me writing "Filler" all over, but I'm also the one who gets to come back and fix it later.
I also don't usually feel like a whole month of poem-a-day because whenever I produce bunches of rough drafts like that (like at the annual Poetry West Baca retreat), I have a hard time polishing the ones that are close and throwing out the ones that aren't--most of them end up sitting together in my draft folder making me feel guilty. I can do that if I'm writing 10-12 drafts over a few days at Baca, but 30 drafts is way too much for me.
When I write a first draft I typically have a few good turns of phrase and maybe an overall form and rhetorical gist, and then I'm pretty much filling in the blanks between those phrases with any damn thing that pops into my head. I remember reading/hearing of Star Trek: The Next Generation long ago that anytime the writers got to a spot that required a technobabble explanation for whatever the phenomenon of the week was, they would just write "Tech" in the script and keep on going--someone technically inclined got to fill it in. My first drafts are like my version of that, with me writing "Filler" all over, but I'm also the one who gets to come back and fix it later.
I also don't usually feel like a whole month of poem-a-day because whenever I produce bunches of rough drafts like that (like at the annual Poetry West Baca retreat), I have a hard time polishing the ones that are close and throwing out the ones that aren't--most of them end up sitting together in my draft folder making me feel guilty. I can do that if I'm writing 10-12 drafts over a few days at Baca, but 30 drafts is way too much for me.
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I decided to try the poem-a-day thing this year, although so far I'm a day behind. Too early to tell if I'll be able to sustain it. At one time, many years ago, talking about upwards of 30 years ago, I wrote so often that this wouldn't have been a major effort for me, but these days I'm not as easy to satisfy when I'm writing.
I don't work in drafts, as such -- I write (by hand, in a stenographer's notepad spiral bound along the top) line by line, crossing out and rewriting as I go. So normally by the time I get to the last line of a poem, the first draft, as it were, is also the finished poem. I may make a minor change or two later, but I rarely go back and to major rewriting once I've gotten to the end of a poem. I don't type poems until they feel finished to me. If I get stuck in the middle of a poem, I let it sit in the note book (for days, weeks, months, years in a few cases) until the next line comes to me.
Not really conducive to writing a poem a day, but will see how it goes.
I don't work in drafts, as such -- I write (by hand, in a stenographer's notepad spiral bound along the top) line by line, crossing out and rewriting as I go. So normally by the time I get to the last line of a poem, the first draft, as it were, is also the finished poem. I may make a minor change or two later, but I rarely go back and to major rewriting once I've gotten to the end of a poem. I don't type poems until they feel finished to me. If I get stuck in the middle of a poem, I let it sit in the note book (for days, weeks, months, years in a few cases) until the next line comes to me.
Not really conducive to writing a poem a day, but will see how it goes.
Steve:
I am not producing "readable drafts" as you put it. I am posting first drafts. I am going to be writing something every morning, and then posting it as my blog. I will be lucky if more than my first day's effort turns into anything which could be kept.
I just decided I would write then post. Ugly is as ugly does, and I am hitting every branch on the way down. Enjoy. Laugh. ridicule. Just don't call me Shirley.
I am not producing "readable drafts" as you put it. I am posting first drafts. I am going to be writing something every morning, and then posting it as my blog. I will be lucky if more than my first day's effort turns into anything which could be kept.
I just decided I would write then post. Ugly is as ugly does, and I am hitting every branch on the way down. Enjoy. Laugh. ridicule. Just don't call me Shirley.
I'm looking at NaPoWriMo as deep play rather than seeds for actual poems -- if something germinates out of the whole process great, but if not it's a good way to get back to the fun, playful part of writing.
I thought I would post all my drafts this month, but I'm chicken. I can't just post drafts when I know they're not good. I do still like the idea of forcing myself to produce something new everyday, and I have my fingers crossed that when I go back to revise, something good will turn up. In the meantime, it's fun to see what my brain comes up with when I put a little pressure on myself.
Steve - I like your Star Trek analogy and tend to write that way. Rarely do poems come line by line. More like writing a puzzle piece by piece and seeing what shapes fit together until all the wholes are filled.
I'm trying the poem-a-day challenge just to keep moving forward. Who knows which drafts will outlast the exercise of it. I hadn't written a poem in nearly 3 years, so I have some serious catching up to do!
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I'm trying the poem-a-day challenge just to keep moving forward. Who knows which drafts will outlast the exercise of it. I hadn't written a poem in nearly 3 years, so I have some serious catching up to do!
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