Random Bits from the Revision Chamber

Hello Dear Ones. I have set myself a challenge, and the deadline is coming up soon. (So. Very. Soon!) I have a hundred or so poem seeds collected in this newsletter, and I pulled out sixty-some to revise into shape as a manuscript for a full-length book of poetry. So, I’ve been spending lots of time in the Revision Chamber.

I call it the Revision Chamber because it really is a different part of my brain than the part that plays and blurts and puts ideas out there. The Revision Chamber is a separate room entirely — although the door is always open to the Hallway of Playful Chaos.

As this is (at least theoretically) a publication about showing the process, I thought I’d share some blurts from the Revision Chamber. Here’s what’s happening: I go through each draft one at a time. First I read it through and gather impressions. Then, I turn to a journal and write those impressions down in coherent-adjacent paragraphs. Then I go back to the poem and start fiddling. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. What follows are some of the impressions I wrote about a few poems. (I’ll link to the draft as well.) I’m waiting to share the revisions until I see what becomes of the manuscript.

After Thunderstorm

The key moment is the moment of water coming from the sky appearing out of the sky touching my hand and returning to the sky disappearing into the sky becoming vapor that enters into my lungs and then is breathed out again into the air to become part of another thunderstorm. This is a poem about reincarnation

Petrichor

California is a witch who follows you around and whispers in your ear and says lovely things while she places a knife between your ribs and she will not let up. She is relentless and full of her own importance.

Possibilities/Six Impossible Things

A study of the way it is actually a thing to believe six impossible things before breakfast and this is a guide in how to do it. I just need two more impossible things. What else is impossible? The sun that rises here is carrying a message for you that it picked up as it crossed Australia