A BIT ABOUT OUR POEM PACKETS


Enjoying the time off? I'm a bit stir-crazy myself, even though I
at least got to go bowling last night . . . Happily, WE will meet.
(By the way, school is closed Tuesday, just got the text from IUSB).

As for our packets. I think what's most helpful is a paragraph some-
where, maybe last page, stating what's working, what's not quite
working (perhaps 60 handwritten words--doesn't have to be long).
Do the poems flow? Is the writing seamless (which is different from
unambiguous--we want ambiguity), is it concrete and / or meta-
phorical, and does the form work (do form and content seem to be
locked together--as if each is essential for the poem's MEANING)?
Put check marks (as I've always done) next to lines and images etc.
you think are effective, and draw a line through things that seem
expendable. Yes, there are many poems, so don't worry about doing
too much with each (as far as comment). Perhaps in your comments
you can name the more effective poems, or your favorites if
they are all effective (and in some instances they are). Or
rank them numerically (seriously)--1 = your favorite poem, 2 =
your second favorite, and so on. This does not mean that number
5, say, is bad. It is a way to communicate something--for one
thing it is good to know which poems are really working well.
We learn from our best poems, as well as our failures. We
need both to learn. I'd say every third draft of a poem I write
is a failure. That doesn't mean I don't sometimes stick it in a
drawer and find things a year later I can use. But I am able to
write a poem, look at it the next day, and say, Wow, that's really
pretty awful. Then I write another one. Sometimes I'll write three
in a row (maybe in a single day or weekend) and not really
look at them closely for a day or two. When I do it's usually pretty
clear that in some, I'm on to something. In others, I'm like--
what the hell was I thinking? So, back to "editing" any way you
can think of to communicate to a classmate, do it. But I do see
the discussion about poems in this class as being more valuable
than the comments, simply because we are trying to communicate
our feeling of a suite of poems, and in a few weeks, as the number
of poems increases you will see that talking is a good way to
communicate how you feel. I'll be doing minimal writing on the
poems myself (I'll edit more than comment) and save my
best stuff for discussion. Also, though, consider what would be
best for the poems as far as order--arrange them in a way that
seems to highlight whatever it is the poems are trying to say
or be . . . What would be a good poem to begin with? If the
poems are short and long, perhaps placing the short ones between
long ones will be a good strategy. But just use your intuition.
That is another way to help the poet though. Maybe you could
"unstaple" them and put them back together in a new order?
Sounds cool to me . . . Ok, just wanted to get this in. Stay
warm. If you can . . .