I try to write poetry

Before

After

Televangelist wet dream Circa. 2007 I couldn't give you a specific time Months lost to the luxuriant haze The sky was a thick blue stripe The sun a flat, brassy coin, Through a Paper Shoot camera Stronger now, like dirt under my fingernails The heavy cloud coverage The bitter twinge of uncertainty It's liminal And unforgettable Yet, it's branded onto my ribs Painfully metaphorical, Charred flesh.

Televangelist wet dream—  Circa. 2007 No clear memory, just months Lost to a luxuriant haze The sky a thick blue stripe, The sun a flat, brassy coin Through a Paper Shoot camera. The memory emerges Like dirt under my fingernails. Cloud coverage and The twinge of uncertainty, It's annoyingly liminal And bitter — and out-of-place Yet, it's branded onto my ribs. Painfully metaphorical, Charred flesh.

Okay, so.

In the initial poem, which was from class, I decided to write something parallel to poems I knew. One big theme that emerged was the coming-of-age trope ("You're", Slyvia Plath; "As the sweet-apple", Sappho; "Nothing Gold Can Stay", Robert Frost). So I tried to put those thoughts into words as best as I could. One my immediate reread I noticed lots of big flaws. Firstly, it felt really bloated and wordy. I noticed this strange fixation with cramming in as many adjectives as possible. I also saw lots of potential to move words around to give the poem more meaning/complexity. I think a lot of the choices I was making were easy not intentional.

After taking it apart, I saw lots of room to grow punctuation-wise. I tried to vary with my choices-- adding dashes and working out my phrasing. The final poem is technically longer, as I found the narrative of the present in the second stanza was better delivered in short lines. I also chose almost completely rewrite the latter half of the second stanza, as it felt like a Mad-Libs. The dash dividing "And bitter" from "and out-of-place" helps establish a rambling, conversational voice that is undercut by more abstract language. I felt like it gave the free verse, meter-less poem rhythym. Connecting to the article, I think the mistakes I made let the sentiment behind the original poem feel more tangible to me-- especially since I wasn't drawing on an exact/personal dramatic situation.

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Reading:

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Listening: