editing

I was able to edit a sheaf of pages from the “Brown Journal” into several prose poems that I’m fairly pleased with. It is such an ODD process. I find it very difficult, although today I think I was getting the hang of it.

What’s involved:

Transcribing everything into the computer just as it was. This I completed sometime in May or June.

Pagination. This was Karen Finley’s advice and it really was the most helpful breakthrough. It broke the project down into manageable chunks that I could see on one page, all there at one time.

Reading the typescript over and over and over again, most of the time making no changes.

Cutting. I had to leave in some of the squirrely slangy commentary. I felt okay about that after reading a lot of John Ashbery, who does something like that. But there was a lot of side chatter. Today it was a lot more clear what was side chatter and what was “contrasting diction” that helped hold the piece together as a poem.

Adding repetition. The stuff is sort of repetitive anyway. But occasionally, I had to throw in yet another repetition.

Reading aloud. I usually don’t read aloud. I can hear the rhythm in my head. But I think I’ll need to read these aloud as revised to be sure I didn’t muck up the original rhythm too much. One of the main things these poems are about is rhythm.

Poetic encouragement. Gertrude Stein’s writing encouraged me (Tender Buttons). Robert Bly’s emphasis on the leaps and the little explosions (intro to BAP 1999). John Ashbery’s diction.

A macchiato encouraged me.

I’ve worked on poetry enough for today. I’d like to apply the revisions to the Word document (these were done by hand), but I think I better save that work for another day.