A Sense of Doubt blog post #2017 - Revising a poem - "Moonless" -- from creative writing prompt
Greetings and welcome to a semi-regular feature of writing stuff on Wednesday because of the first letters of those words. Sometimes, I post a poem. Sometimes articles about writing. Sometimes I share some of my own thoughts on writing or non-poetry actual writing.
What I attempted here is the revision of a poem that I wrote in 1985 as I audited a class with Conrad Hilberry at Kalamazoo College in poetry.
It was the prompt shared below in which he had made a list of words from the poems of one poet, in this case Thomas Merton, and he challenged us to write a poem using as many of the words as we could manage, at best, all the words.
I was deep in my Dylan Thomas and TS Eliot period, and so the original version of the poem really reflects those influences.
The list was as follows from the poetry of Thomas Merton.
Thomas Merton word set: cloister, quicksand, honeycomb, steelbright, whinnying, cunning, ecstasy.
The original poem is cringe worthy, so you should praise me for putting out on the Internet (and sharing with my students) such sophomoric work.
Though I like the line "Sorrow offers a chance for ecstasy," it was so very pretentious and having the speaker of the poem "murmur" it was just too much.
Other pretensions appeal to me if only for what I was thinking then, such as "Innuendoes honeycomb the half-heard truth" and "the gravity of discarded menus."
I also notice that in my rewrite I cut "ecstasy" and "cunning" as I could not find a way to keep them. I would think this is still a valid adherence to the prompt as they are in the original (all the words are) and trimming down the chaff that seems more like poetic double-talk is more important than keeping either word.
My approach in revising was first and foremost to make it read and sound like something I would write today, 35 years later.
As I re-read the poem, I saw clearly the things I wanted to do that were getting a bit lost in the verbiage.
There was a night journey through city streets that might be a dream or might be dream-like in which the particulars are all representations of a life stage, a relationship, things, ideas, and feelings in the waking, daylight world.
The poem had a clear division between the moonless night landscape and the dawn and the new day.
I thought the ending worked, and I felt I could preserve that text more or less as is, but much of the rest had to transform or be cut entirely.
I started out keeping in the "cunning guides me" opening lines, and then I dropped them. I did not think they fit what the poem was trying to do.
I still think I am hanging onto some imagery and sentence constructions that probably should be cut and are only kept because they are words from the prompt, such as "cloistered in the quicksand of the unseen," and "the honeycombed shadows of the ghosts of daytime," both of which I like but also recognize are my darlings and may need to be killed.
Also, words that I remember now were part of the original prompt, such as "wildworld" that guided me to create "the wildworld of frozen shadows," which I rather like but may be overwritten, and "gravity," which I kept but removed from "the gravity of discarded menus," which sounds great but I have no idea what it means and moved it to "The gravity of valuable friends pulls me through
the city’s needled eyes," which may work and may not. The "valuable friends" is a Bowie reference ("Ashes to Ashes") and for that reason it should probably be cut though i like "gravity" here better as I think it makes more sense and it replaces what is was trying to do with the fence of friends in the original.
Ultimately, I like the rewrite, but I don't think I have a publishable poem yet, by which I mean outside of sharing it here, I would not submit it anywhere.
I share it here to share with students and for a Writing Wednesday.
Thanks for tuning in.
ORIGINAL VERSION:
MOONLESS SOLITUDE
THE WELCOME SORROW OF NIGHT
Cunning guides me
down night's streets.
Driving me into the cocoon
of trash. Here, in this alley
unwashed by the sky, I am
cloistered by a quicksand
trash. I am entombed
by gutters, and the gravity
of discarded menus.
A fence of valuable friends encircles
my home. It rises every evening to taunt
my arrogances. Altars are born
of sidewalks -- we worship conversation,
rubbish and tribulations.
"Sorrow offers a chance for ecstasy,"
I murmur.
Innuendoes honeycomb the half-heard
truth. I compose hymns
to the pagan vanity of love.
My razor shaves their skins
adrift in a soapy sink. But nothing,
not the sharpest razor, nor the keenest
mind could save us from the chasms
between our souls.
We are purged in an eternal
lent and we, she and I, resist
the evening love in contrition
for our walking sin.
Garbage evaporates;
steelbrightining the world.
Dawn creeps through the shutters
of my heart, turning it to relieved sighs,
yielding gradually
the emotions that fuel the morning tide.
Our souls remain -- a wildworld of
frozen shadows.
The whispering of her hair
and the whinnying horses
wakes me from dreams.
She's up before me
burning the coffee on the stove
and grooming the mounts.
I mix myself with the lazy smell
of hay. I drink the
barn, tower silos, hay bales,
corn, grain, mice, air, the excess
dribbling from mouth's corners,
staining the quilt
of our makeshift bed.
REWRITE
THE MOONLESS SORROW OF NIGHT
Through alleys thinned by high walls,
I lurch along uneven brick pavement,
cloistered in the quicksand of the unseen,
a cocoon of gutters, overflowing dumpsters,
cardboard boxes, twisted bicycles, cigar butts,
and discarded take-out menus in Vietnamese
under moonless skies tangled with dark clouds.
The gravity of valuable friends pulls me through
the city’s needled eyes,
to pause at sidewalk altars for families
too disabled to work, sending an army
of truant children to earn the weekly subsidy,
at night their poster-board family albums
flagstone the tilted walkways fencing
construction sites.
I walk in silence and the honeycombed shadows
of the ghosts of daytime, whispering
of their vanities, the neglected razor shavings,
the dirge of the commute, the tight-jawed parade,
the avoidance of seeing the pleading children
and the upturned mouths of their coin-filled,
crumpled coffee cups.
Held tightly in our daily lent,
the love we share provides no contrition
for the sin of walking by not seeing
what we see, not hearing the voices,
the flickering light bulbs,
feeling the distant rumbling
of trains in our toes.
As each day closes up shop, garbage multiplies,
transforms, reforms into a steelbright world
of concrete, broken palettes, and relief
turned hard, cold, and shuttered shut.
As I re-trace my steps, double back and around,
lost in the wildworld of frozen shadows,
dawn creeps over the city lights,
fuels a morning tide of beeping trucks,
revving engines, and sirens, sucking
in our breaths, and holding, holding, holding.
The whispering of her hair and the whinnying horses
wakes me from dreams.
She's up before me burning the coffee and corned beef
on the stove and grooming the mounts.
I mix myself with my lazy smell with the hay,
the barn, tower silos, corn, grain, mice,
the excess dribbling from the corners of my mouth,
staining the quilt of our makeshift bed.
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| White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the "Unite the Right" rally on Aug. 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images file |
THE YEAR IN NUMBER: 2017
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2017-year-review-here-are-top-10-biggest-news-stories-n828881
2017 was the first full year of that occupant who is not my "president" as I do not support his election and the phony cheating of all due process and of the American people.
2017 was also my last year as a Michigan resident.
I said goodbye to KUDL or rather KUDL said goodbye to me as I was too choked up to speak. And then the next day I got in my car with my Dad and the dogs and drove out west to my new home to meet my wife.
The thing is about these years since 2015 is that my life is on full display on my blog.
Here's the highlights.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #752 - Letting go of BOOKS
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #758 - Lunch with Lori
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #771 - Moving Day
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #775 - Goodbye Kalamazoo - My Old School
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #774 - Goodbye KUDL
LEAVING MICHIGAN
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| Leaving Kalamazoo - 1708.20 |
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| Motel #1 Lakewood Luddington 1708.20 (5) |
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #776 - On the Ferry - Trip west Day #1
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| Day Three - Ship Rock, Wisconsin, 1708.22 |
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #779 - Havre, Montana - Trip West Day Four
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #782 - Arrival - My New Home- Trip West Day Seven
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1272 - Driving Across the country with two dogs
We did not stay here. Though it looks charming, not so much...
We paid, but left. Instead we stayed here, which was in "RICHLAND" Washington.
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| Breakfast 1708.23 Riverside Inn Cold Spring MN (1) |
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| Car Travel days 1708.23 west (1) |
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| Cut Bank 1708.25 Rest Stop (3) |
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| Driving 1708.25 Montana (6) |
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| Ellory in the car 1708.22 |
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| First Stop 1708.26 Hot Springs (1) |
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| Leaving Richland, WA 1708.27 |
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| Satchel Ellory sleeping in the car 1708.21 (1) |
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| Rest stop 1708.23 Barnesville MN (3) |
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| River Rest Stop 1708.22 (1) |
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| Riverfront Park Last rest stop trip 1708.27 The Dalles OR (7) |
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| Satchel Ellory sleeping in the car 1708.21 (1) |
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| First Stop 1708.26 Hot Springs (2) |
WEIRD - FACEBOOK showed me this photo (below) from three years ago and wanted to know if I wanted to share it again at the same time as I am recapping here. Just by coincidence that 2017 comes up in the numbering at the same time as my arrival in PDX three years ago.
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| Nearing Portland and Vancouver 1708.27 |
THAT (all above... moving) WAS the BIGGIE news of 2017.
What else?
David Bowie's 70th birthday celebrated with EP release
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #567 - Donald Trump Signs Anti-Abortion Executive Order Surrounded by Men
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #572 - It's okay to punch a Nazi
I LOVE THIS MIX... it was one of my first, sort of mine...
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #573 - Kieron Gillen's Best of for 2016 - Musical Monday 1701.30
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother Unumbered-01 - Empty Class
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #612 - Pistons game with Dad: Pistons Beat Cavs 106-101 1703.09
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #627 - ASM#25 - Spider-Man pauses midfight to consider racist message
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #633 - Studying Calculus - Exam #2
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #642 - Detroit Tigers Opening Day - 1704.07
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #661 - Penguicon 2017 - Part One
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| Me meeting Mr. John Scalzi At Penguicon 2017 - 1704.29 |
One of my most popular posts ever and one of my last reviews for the Battle Creek Enquirer.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #675 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #683 - The news is coming in too fast to process intelligentl
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #697 - Miguel Cabrera Milestone - 1000 XBH
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #698 - Best Trump Tweet of all Time
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #707 - Golden State Warriors WIN!! 2017 NBA champions!
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #712 - Motor City Comic Con
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #721 - I'm Happy - the dancing gorilla video
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #740 - Princess RIP - 2003-2017
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #792 - Exploring Vancouver pt.1
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #838 - A Satchel - What We Leave Behind, What We Let Go
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #857 - Don't let your dog pee in my yard
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #871 - Thanksgiving 2017
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #891 - Michigan Visit Day One
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #909 - Portland 1712.30
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2008.26 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1881 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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