Well,. it clearly depends, as you suggest here, Stephen. But as a
critic, I tend to just take the published work as such -- & 'read'
that. The study of drafts etc, is something else, & very interesting
when dealing with poets who revise a lot. I'm no longer one of those;
it either works or doesn't usually. But a longer work would demand a
lot of going back over & then I suspect more deletion & corrections
would appear. I know I sometimes make some drastic changes in the
stanza I'm working on in the collaboration with Sheila Murphy, but
those changes just disappear into the ether as this is an e-mail
collaboration, & I am writing on screen (while for most of my poetry I
write the first draft in pen).
Doug
On 7-Feb-05, at 8:29 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
>> So we come to the same issue in what we do. Have we written poems,
>> preserved on paper or disk, that nobody will ever see in their present
>> state, or that become seed for other poems, because we've judged the
>> original to be bad news? How much, for that matter, do we know about
>> the
>> compositional practices of earlier writers?
>
> How much do we want to know? I suspect multiple drafts are often a
> charm to
> students (learning to write and/or read). It's certainly the advantage
> of
> going to a University with a library of archival resources - U Texas at
> Austin, for example. To be able to see how Zukofsky resources his
> materials,
> transformed and/or mediated them into language, etc. UC San Diego for
> Olson,
> Oppen, Blackburn, Hejinian - etc. etc. I am sure people in other
> countries
> could site similar resources.
>
> A friend, an editor I trust with my work, is currently editing a
> manuscript
> of my new series.Walking Theory. Before I gave him the mss., I
> reviewed it
> and put those little computer cross-out lines through a number of poems
> which I thought dismissible. I actually wanted him to take another
> look.
> First he thought I was aesthetizing the poem to make readers work
> harder to
> find out what was going on! I explained. Then he said, "whoa," why are
> you
> taking this or that one out. I like them. Etc.
>
> Finally - unless publisher/editors are being sloppy - the poem is
> mediated
> first by the poet and then a back and forth in a process that includes
> giving readings, working with fellow poets in a group, and then with a
> good
> editor. A poem is less "held" by the universe when any or all of these
> systems of mediation are not present.. No mid-wife, less likelier the
> healthy child qua poem.
>
> I have known 'older' poets to be embarrassed by humbling themselves
> back
> into this process. As if maturity conquers, etc. I suspect it's more
> often a
> case where the 'older' person's work has just come to repeat itself.
>
> The other night - in a related issue - I heard someone say, "When so
> and so
> was young, we were dazzled by the his/her radical technical innovations
> which could only be read as 'avant.' When the person grew older, we
> waited
> for a received wisdom - something fused with the technique in which we
> were
> also knocked off our feet by a knowledge or a tone - something more
> like a
> great dinner that gives a shift to every conventional expectation of
> taste.
> A touch of lemon juice & pepper on the sautéed slices of new potato.
> Sadly,
> with this person's work, the expectations were not met.
>
> In terms of reading a poem that really takes me, I will stay first
> with what
> I see on the page (reading it again and again, working out its
> inner-play).
> Then gradually work back and compare with the poem's fellow siblings
> in the
> book - to either re-enforce the experience or make me question my
> first
> 'blush'. In terms of going back in the kitchen and looking at a poet's
> early
> drafts, I am not so inclined. I came for dinner!!
>
> Stephen Vince
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight.
And still property is theft.
Phyllis Webb
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