This is reminding me of an exchange I had with Robin Hamilton a while back.
He says that all drafts form part of the overall poem and should therefore
be kept. I suspect he's thinking of this from a scholar's point of view, the
'whole poem' being the one, with notes, in the eventual variorum edition.
But I reckon all of those possibilities are in there by virtue of having
been decided against, and will therefore be instrinsic in the finished poem.
I can't remember who won this argument -- probably we both got sidetracked
onto another subject and abandoned it for the time being. But is this
something anyone else has any ideas on?
joanna
> Yes I have kept all my scraps notes -well one day my heirs will be able to
> sell them for millions -and also I like to look back how the little
> buggers
> started developed or not
> Fortunately even my roughs are brilliant so no problem( :-) )
> Ps most of my work has been posthumous anyway
> P modest P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Janet Jackson
> Sent: 16 March 2006 14:53
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Destroying preparatory work (was Re: Inspiration)
>
> Doug B says
>> As I recall, Eliot made the same point, & then was careful to have all
>>
>> the preparatory work destroyed so that no one could put together a
>> posthumous collection of his rejects.
>
> Good for him! I've always thought I should do that. The "rejects"
> and warmups aren't good enough for publication... although I suppose
> they might be of academic interest someday if anyone should decide
> I'm worth studying <lol>
>
> Hmm, perhaps it's more that I wouldn't want people to know what
> I was thinking!
>
> Yet I still have all my old notes. What has prevented me so far
> is that I like to look over them myself from time to time,
> to see where I was at.
>
> Where are those matches?
>
> Janet
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> Poems at Proximity:
> http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
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