In perhaps a tangent here, Doug, but it is interesting to think of the Brut
Chronicle (the 'history ' of England) that began as a uniquely inscribed
manuscript in 1285 or so (I believe), and then was redone in varying
'copies' until the late fifteenth century. It kept getting radically
revised, embellished etc. - reflective of the political bias of the ruling
house that commissioned the new edition, as well as the passing of years.
Not much different than the school board in Kansas reviving Creationism
(Intelligent Design) as equally important to Darwin's theory of evolution.
I hope multiple libraries are keeping original drafts of Darwin. There is no
telling how far our friends in Washington will do in order to induce various
kinds of historical amnesia.
Keep those drafts (preliminary and final) of your poems and other works on
bond acid free paper. Otherwise your work on disc may be hacked, splatted
and sent off into the Cosmos for the next eon. I am not kidding. Ask any
contemporary librarian his/her thoughts and fears.
With that good cheer, we got fresh pink cherry blossoms and white apple and
plum that are spring anew in the neighborhood. They won't last either. But -
air pollution not withstanding - they do always appear to come back!
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> 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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