A Little Bit of Poetry

I once wrote a post describing my childhood efforts at becoming a novelist. Even then I had the soul of a writer, hungering as I did for my words to impact the world around me by making a difference in someone's life. I had a voice which needed to be heard, if only I could find the right words to hook my potential readers.

I'd forgotten about my fizzled out attempts at publication with Impossible Pete until I began working on putting together (for a friend) a booklet of my body of poetry. The instant I held the first printed page in my hands I was flooded with emotion. For me there will always be a vast distinction between composing directly onto my computer (as most of these poems were conceived) and committing my work to paper. I need to hold my poems in my hands, as I deliberately slow down my reading to make the enjoyment last a bit longer. It's not that I'm in love with my own work, it's more that I've come to see that I'm beginning to evolve as a writer. After decades of skirting truth, of avoiding anything unpleasant in my work I'm digging beneath the surface and showing to the world what I've uncovered, whether it be pleasant or putrid. I'm not glossing things over by using trite words peppered with bland euphemisms.

I've a lifelong penchant for that which is a bit rough around the edges, dog-eared, if you will. Writing is no different:  I shy away from the slick and commercial and cherish that which lacks polish but speaks truth. This is one reason why holding my poetry pages touches me so deeply. I'll never get the same feeling from reading my words on a monitor--that's too impersonal for me. I've kept first drafts of stories and poems written 30 years ago. I haven't been able to toss them out no matter how crumpled their appearance or how many cross-outs or erasures they contain. There upon lined pages aged with time I once attempted to tell a truth. A little truth, or maybe a bigger truth. I wasn't very good at self-expression, but there was a writer in me dying to be heard. I don't know if visual artists keep their first efforts, I think my dad did but that may be simply from his bad habit of not throwing out anything. I'm doomed to cherish my rough drafts more than I ever could anything which finds its way into print. I like that this is so, for it tells me that at heart I'm a writer more concerned with truth than with appearances.

Comments

[Marcy]

I like both -- I love to hold the finished CD in my hands, and I love to hold the studio copy -- and I kept journals of the recording process, and I love the photos from the studio and all. All my paper journals, including old stories and poetry, stay safe in my trunk. I still have old cassette recordings of me trying to sing my original songs to preserve them.

[Austin]

There's something about that first step, the rough drafts, that appeals to me very much. It's almost as if its where the idea was born. Because I don't toss them I have to keep very well organized photo books and a large, oh so large filing cabinet with a meticulous system for identification. This helps me keep the art and writing I want to keep but preserves space too.

In something hand written I can see the flow of thought as well as the intensity of emotions or lack there of.

Keep your rough drafts and handwritten pieces. They're like the Beautiful Dreamer Museum of History.

fma