So recently, I've had the great opportunity to have one on one poetry revision sessions with a guy named Shawn who's an MFA student in poetry at UNCG. It's been amazing; I tell ya. It takes us about 2 hours to go over three poems. I've done this twice and therefore the following post will be six revised poems. They're awesome. Read them. Tell me what you think. I'd love it if you compared them to the originals and told me if you liked the changes or no and why. But maybe that's asking too much of you. If you just read them and enjoy them, I'll be satisfied, especially if you tell me you enjoyed them. Thanks!
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Portrait of a Roommate
I hear through dreams and I smell the smoke,
the silent alarm that drags me out awake.
Tomorrow sits on the couch,
ashes between his fingers, beer can empty,
confesses he forgot to walk around the block
complains of a headache and the bright lights,
the ones shining high in the open corridor.
But he won’t go to bed when I tell him to.
No, he just watches sports on TV
though he pays no attention, not even thinking.
Inside him is an emptiness that smells
of abandon, of rage beneath the blank face.
I yield to my room and turn off the switch again.
I want to sleep, but I turn to the wall too often,
imagining I can move in with Yesterday.
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Shawn enjoyed the idea of Tomorrow trying to forget tomorrow and, while I sort of had that concept, he put it into words, which helped a bit in the revision of this poem.
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The Napkin
Once, this was written on a white napkin
while waiting for take-out in a Chinese restaurant.
The original will be lost someday:
smeared with grease, or used as a tissue,
or left in the backseat of a car to be trampled
and then thrown out.
I say this so you won’t forget beginnings:
often malleable, yet easily forgotten.
In these ways we connect, this napkin and I.
Storms soak us and bitter times tear us.
But looking back I remember who I was and who I am,
even as I hope you find yourself
in the reflection of a glass of water at home,
while you wash your hands of old dirt,
or when you hear your own steps on a crowded street.
The smiles around you confirm that you are alive again,
refined like this poem, printed on a fresh page.
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Shawn liked this poem because it avoided sentimentality, for the most part. I did do a slight edit to avoid that a little more, but the overall feeling of the poem is the same. He also pointed out that if I'm the one who remembers who I am, shouldn't the reader be the one who remembers who they are. Yeah, that makes sense to me, too. Finally, he pointed out that "restored" wasn't strong enough a word for the end, that I needed a word that not only showed life, but improvement. I think I found it in "refined."
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The Milky Way
As if I was a child spilling onto the night sky
his bowl of cereal dripping with milk,
so too I catch my breath tonight
before it can join the galaxy up there,
there where ancient stars circle.
Dark rivers swirl bright
whirlpools, sinking out of reach.
My faint sparkle drowns.
In this way my thoughts tremble,
in fear of a power that silences me
as if imagining the frown of a parent,
in awe of a force that makes me nothing,
a mess of feelings, splashed on the ground.
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Most of the changes here were with the beginning, adding "I" into the first line. Not too much different here, but overall better, I believe.
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Fast Food in the City
Back on the road, he unfolds the paper,
like the scuffing of feet on green grass.
I listen in the dark to the nature:
chewing, the animal and its cud,
hooves clopping down the trail.
The slurp becomes a nearby stream,
water rolling over the smooth stones,
churning onto rough rocks, yet unbroken.
Ice shakes in his cup: a distant thunder
from which none seek shelter.
And finally the wrapper crinkles in his hands,
as freshly fallen leaves crumple under toe
along the path to home, to what’s natural, to sleep.
He shows his satisfaction with a simple shrug.
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Shawn also really liked this one. He pointed out that I could do more with the title to add to the meaning of the poem, so I did. He also just helped me to focus the images a bit so that each is slightly more accesible and with the impact in the right area.
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Fireworks
She looks out the window,
and my eyes follow, out into the night,
where lamplights reveal emptiness. And then
I hear a drumming sound
of victory overtaking itself.
Like gunshots in the dark, only upwards.
This is what calls her attention.
There are no bursting colors
but sounds of bombs rising,
the black sky against the rumble
that she calls fireworks.
It is like the bass drums marching,
pounding their red hearts
and beating their chests.
It is an anxious symphony of clocks,
the crashing of chairs and tables,
doors closing against me. I look at her
before I notice the moment is over.
The triumphal noise ended long ago.
The defeated silence remains, hanging
like the new moon above us.
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One things Shawn thought at first is that there was a riot outside, so in revision I tried to make it clearer that I was describing with images what I heard, not what was actually going on. If the reader gets caught up thinking that the fireworks are something other than fireworks, I need to work on that. I also tried some different line breaks to move along the reader, and because I think it makes more sense this way. I added the final line to emphasize the overall end feeling.
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Lightning
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning” – The Glass Menagerie
Lightning woke me that cold night in summer,
not an awareness of my toes, bare to the open window.
I am always a child in that image.
Lightning is a memory so faded that I can’t remember
more than the black and white, that it happened sometime,
never quite the way I imagine: with rain taking a midnight stroll,
the whole world sleeping but I, caught in wonder,
alone in shivering awake, of wanting to drift off.
All I show to you is mine and no one else’s.
Lightning is the scent of lavender, years later, at the door
of where I don’t consider home, though I dream there nightly
in a room small enough for one, smaller for two.
The thunder echoes, clapping for an encore,
that the stage should rule me, hold me in my seat,
for when life is struck, it doesn’t always move on.
Yet it is the sharpness that keeps me alive,
when the nightmare is that I can’t forget
when the girl doesn’t sit beside me anymore,
or when my grandmother died one afternoon.
I hold them with my bleeding hands in a flash of white,
until the darkness reminds me who I am.
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This is the poem that took us the longest to go over because, I believe, it had a lot of potential. It's a poem that tries hard to connect two seemingly dissimilar things, lightning and memory, and do so in a clear way. It also tries to make use of a famous quote (yes, the quote is important to the poem. It inspired me to write the poem, but I didn't just add it in for kicks). So yeah, Shawn helped me understand what my language was inferring and thereby helped me know what could be improved/changed. And I think this version is much better. I hope you've enjoyed it, and all of them! Thanks for reading!
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