creative writing – Page 21 – don't confuse the narrator

verses and versions

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been re-visiting some old poems and re-drafting, revising and re-writing.

Some of the changes are substantial – whole stanzas, refurbished, renovated, knocked in together or removed completely. With changes like this it’s usually clear whether the result is an improvement.

Other changes, though, are less clear cut. I feel like Oscar Wilde when he said he’d been hard at work all day on a poem: “This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.”

I know that every little detail of a poem is important, but sometimes I feel that recognising the exact best version is like trying to find the prettiest flower in a patch like the one in the picture.

losing the thread

Amor, Amor
(after Garcilaso de la Vega)

Love offered me a cloth so fine and rich,
 with folds so ample, I could not refuse 
but sewed myself a habit, stitch by stitch.
 I find the garment shrinks with daily use:
 its generous measures pucker and draw tight,
 I suffocate where once I’d room to spare;
I stretch and strain to free myself, I fight, 
yet still the precious fabric will not tear.
Come, show me one who wants to cut these ties –
 these homespun tapes we fashion for our lives
 to bind ourselves to husbands or to wives –
 and I will show you one who’s spinning lies.
 Each wears the cloth he wove, though I confess 
I wonder if mine’s shroud or wedding dress.

Continue reading “losing the thread”

grey’ku

This morning, I waited in the half-light for a bus that finally arrived 40 minutes late: there was no one about, and the only noise was the rain, an occasional car and a few birds. It gave me plenty of time to think, though it was too wet to get a notebook out to try and capture any of the ideas.

(I suppose I could record memos on my phone, but how you’re supposed to skim through an audio file later, I don’t know.)

Mind you, I actually believe that writing a thought down too soon can ‘fix’ it before it is ready, and I may carry a phrase or image round in my head for days or weeks, occasionally even years, before I finally anchor it to the page.
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first person dreaming

This morning I woke with a scene from a dream still vivid in my mind: in some kind of apocalyptic sci-fi/thriller setting, with explosions and dangerous pursuers (yes, I watch too much TV) I’d managed to do some neat programming trick and someone had asked me, “How did you know that? Were you brought up with technology?”

In response, I’d launched into a description of when and where I had learned about computers etc.
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cats mean credits

I’m travelling at the moment, and only intermittently connected to the web, so it’s tricky to find time and opportunity to update the blog, especially as there are all too many other priorities when there actually is a connection.

One of the things I’ve been trying to research during my intemittent interconnectedness in the last few days is postgrad writing courses.

The idea of going back to (semi) formal study is a subject that has cropped up again after a long period when I was sure it was the last thing I wanted to do. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs here, but I will quote from a course handbook I was reading yesterday:

Assessment
A portfolio of 10,000 words (45 CATS), or 8,000 words (36 CATS) 6,000 words (30 CATS) or 5000 words (20 CATS).

I might manage to write 45 poems with cats in them – indeed, perhaps I already have – but I thought poetry was a condensed form. In which case, surely more words isn’t necessarily a Good Thing?

(Additionally, I am reminded of those “binders full of women”, not to mention that even 20 cats are almost certain to be very smelly.)