I’ve spent the last week going to concerts at Music and Beyond, the new chamber music festival in town. Never mind the stinking heat, I’ve been out there lining up around the block with the other fanatics, and then inside, squirming on bare pews.

To my surprise, it’s been a useful exercise for my poetry. Especially two of the concerts. The first, The Gallery Project, featured new Canadian music composed to art mostly painted by dead white guys. The second was for piano and featured music written by … dead white guys. Okay, so I’ve also been thinking about the need for diversity in the classical music scene, but that’s not my main point today (though it is bugging me. The performers were mostly live white guys. White is getting boring. Read here for a local success story. And then, if you want to be proactive, email here.)

I’d previously read a post by the Newfoundland poet Stephen Rowe in which he discusses what makes poetry great. I don’t want to repeat it here – it’s worth reading. But it had started me reflecting on how I recognize excellence in other’s work when I read or hear it.

I carried that question into concerts, where it’s easier for me to hear greatness because of my early training (my undergraduate degree is in performance on the french horn – one of those popular party instruments, the kind people were always begging me to pull out and play).

I know the techniques to listen for in music. So when I heard Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata the other night, there was no question it was superb. And I could say that even though I didn’t like Tigran Alikhanov’s interpretation of it. The music shone! Next on the program was Schumann’s Carnaval. Not so good. Yes, Alikhanov banged his way through it, but still, as my husband said afterwards, ‘needs editing’. (I think he might hang out with me too much.) The Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition after intermission was straight back to genius.

The contemporary composers were also mixed. Two of them, Scott Macmillan and Jocelyn Morlock, had written tight, crisp pieces. They never sagged. But another one’s work was movie music. Cut. And someone else’s piece had some lovely sections interspersed with ‘oh dear’. I felt I needed scissors in order to be able to enjoy it.

All this made me think of my own poems. I want them to become like Beethoven’s or Morlock’s work. Or, as Rowe points out, like Calvin & Hobbes. Also great. I don’t want the saggy bits where my readers’ attention droops (have I lost you yet?). This means continually honing my ear by reading others’ poetry and by paying attention to what works – and doesn’t.

I also want to know when what I have written is fine but slight, like another of the new Canadian compositions. Hearing it helped me to realize that while the poem I wrote waiting in line for that concert is quite nice, it’s lightweight. Yes, I worked on it a lot (I was in line for an hour) so I got it to a reasonable first stage. But it will never be more than a learner poem, where I manipulate language and play with edge and shadow. It’s still important practise. When the good stuff comes, it helps me to be more ready for it. But from now on, my learner poems stay buried.

Fortunately, the Voice granted me a second poem that day, since the first one left me hungry. I’m happier with this one, though I have to confess, I wrote it during the concert and made a prune-lipped old lady mad. She thought I was texting. It’s quite hard to explain poetry sotto voce.

So for today’s editing example, here’s poem #1:

The Glint of Water

.

.

.

Yup, it’s gone. There are times to be brutal in editing and this is one of them.

Here is the replacement offering:

Listening to Music

Listening to you play,
chords crashing on a flood-lit
stage, clarinet colluding
with string’s waver, I remember
my horn’s own soar, lips tight
against cold metal, breath’s
quiver driving a line on.
Do I miss it? My mind
travels back to rooms tiny
with years’ hot sweat, watch
propped on stand keeping time
with scales running through
boredom’s stubborn face. Yes,
there was joy in playing together,
my part united in Brahms’
grand whole, but always the need
for piecework dragged me
down. Back my mind goes,
back, to cycling home for
lunch-time rounds, trucks breathing
hot on my thin neck. It wasn’t
worth it, was only a mother’s
lost dream. I listen now
with words. Content.

One of poetry’s gifts is that it can hold up a mirror for us, one that allows us to freshly see ourselves and our lives, to feel how others have lived our experiences.

That’s what the best poets do. I’m still working at it, but happily learning from a master, Barry Dempster, one of my favourite poets. He doesn’t do private tuition, but that hasn’t stopped me from conducting a private Barry Dempster tutorial program. Reading his work – and listening to him whenever I can – has taught me much about how to use imagery to transform the ordinary. For an example of how he does it, take a look at The Conversation.

At a recent reading, Barry told us he takes his students on ‘poetry walks’ where he gets them to examine every bush and leaf, every crack and berry up close, so that detail can inform their work. Good idea, I thought. But living as I do with migraines and fibromyalgia, I don’t always make it outside. Fortunately, I have years of remembered observation to draw on.

So when it comes time to write my poem a day, I simply go somewhere. I relive an experience, working to recapture its essential details.

Here’s an example, first draft:

The higher we go, the more we hear

We sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, the down-slide
of windows the blankest of mirrors reflecting
the preening weather, bluest sky to grey’s layered
weight. Up here, I’d thought height contained
only multitudes of bird song on wind, gravity holding
a city’s discord to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks us awake, the horns of hurry
blaring as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
The weighty whine of air-brakes lift us from
our warm blanketed cocoons and into the bright glare
of the truck’s cab, radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand gripping gears.
But we travel just a few miles down the Gardiner,
Lake Ontario sparkling our eyes awake, before
your furnace comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering our ears. We roll into it, skin-to-skin
with work’s release, and sleep until coffee enters.

Remember, the single rule of my writing a poem a day is to write the first words that come into my head. They’re usually the title. There is no rule that says I have to keep those words, so they’re quite often edited out. The rule is simply there so I don’t get in my own way, dithering over the blank page. I find my subconscious almost always has a plan for the poem. My job is to listen. And then to fix the results.

The first thing I did in this poem was to change the perspective from ‘We’ to ‘I’. It’s pretty hard to convince a reader that both members of a couple are imagining being in a truck’s cab at the same time. It’s much stronger to use a single, clear voice.

Then I had to get rid of repetition: ‘high’ in the title and the first line meant one had to go. So I changed the title. And I had ‘awake’ twice. And ‘until’. Bad. But then I chose to deliberately repeat ‘I’d thought’ to emphasize my narrator’s preconceptions. And I still begin and end with ‘sleep’. While revising the poem over the last few weeks, I’ve carefully considered each word and its role.

That led me to pare images at the beginning and the end, where I don’t want the distraction. I shortened line lengths. And finally, I took out the coffee. I don’t like coffee. Even the scent of it in a poem disturbs me.

Here’s the current final version:

Heard Visiting You

I sleep high, your guest bed floating
among Toronto’s clouds, up a slide
of windows, blank mirrors reflecting
weather’s changing face. I’d thought
height contained nothing more
than wings, the streaks of bird
and plane singing songs
only sky can hear. I’d thought
gravity held a city’s discord
to the ground. I was wrong.
Each intersection squawks me
awake, the horns of hurry blaring
as engines rev in lighted anticipation.
I’m lifted from warm blankets
by the weighty whine of air-brakes
into the bright glare of a truck’s cab,
radio crooning the long-haul,
a dog’s nuzzle cold on the hand
gripping gears. I travel a few miles
down the Gardiner, Lake Ontario sparkling
at my eyes until your furnace
comes on, a low humming of warmth
covering my ears. I pull it closer
as sleep slides me away

This poem was published on the Parliament of Canada’s Poem of the Month website, December 2010.

Let’s face it, many of us mine our lives for our poetry. It’s what we know best and it’s easy to write about, especially when we’re first starting out. The pits are familiar, the contours known to us by heart. It’s a great place to learn to play with language.

The trick is to find the universal in the personal. I’m not saying I was a fast learner. My Crap Poem file is vastly thicker than my good one, but I did get some keepers out of my early years.

Here’s one of them. Its genesis was getting to know a person who seemed lovely and then … wow. I originally named the poem after her which was a bad idea. It was also a bad idea because, as you can see from the first draft below, the original poem was too obscure.

Person’s Name Was Here

We all come with suitcases trundling
behind us, some stuffed so full, cords
hold them tight, you can see the threads
fraying, how taut they pull. Others
like scared old ladies, carry theirs around
their necks, stray feathers slipping, leaving
a path so they can retrace their steps. Or is it
that for some, their way is so impeded, they knick
every building they pass, a little chink here, a
welt there, it’s not much in the abstract, more art
than hansel and gretel, till it’s you the edge catches.

So the first thing I did was change the title. I chose one to help provide context for the poem’s meaning. And of course, I read the poem aloud, something I always do since it allows me to hear the flow of the language, or in the case above, the cumbersomeness. I questioned what was essential for my meaning in all that description, an exercise I always submit my poems to. You can see below which phrases made the cut. You can also see that I decided to rearrange the opening, starting small (purse-size issues), then moving increasingly larger.

I also changed the perspective in this last version. In the original, I’d made the claim that everyone has baggage, big baggage at that. How to win friends among your readers! It’s not even what I intended. I wanted the poem to be about those who carry serious baggage. We all know a few. We may even recognize ourselves. But it’s better for readers to do that than for me to hit them over the head.

This is where careful questioning of the role of every word in a poem helps. I also do it for sound, but I’ll look at that in a future posting.

So here’s the current final version:

Baggage

Many carry theirs like scared old ladies’ purses,
tight around their necks, holding close.
Others come with suitcases trundling behind,
some barely held shut by fraying cords,
stray issues slipping out to form
a wispy path in the night, the kind
girls with hollow eyes follow. Is yours so big
your way is impeded and you can’t help
but nick every building you pass, a little chink here,
a welt there? It’s not much in the abstract, more art
than Hansel and Gretel, till it’s us your edge catches.

I’m not sure what happened in my late forties, but all of a sudden young people started offering me their seats on the bus. And cashiers gave me seniors’ discounts. Now, in and of themselves, these are wonderful things. But context is everything and I was a bit disconcerted. What was going on?

That question became the subject of today’s poem. Here’s the first version:

What Remains on a Face?

Seats appear at 50 from youth
who don’t surrender easily. What lines
do they read on a face alone
with itself, a face that thinks
it’s shuttered. Night must
seep out, the kind that curls
around ankles and pulls
you down. How to hide then?
How to carry the tinkle of bells
in a green field, the whiteness
of daisies in grass? She doesn’t
know, rearranges her lips blindly.

My first edit was simply about pruning. I liked this poem right off (and when I wrote it, I wasn’t liking much I was writing), but I could see the need for tightening. And a new title. I decided to have a play on words, one that gives an (impossible) observer’s stance. I want the poem to give a sense of the narrator trying to observe herself from the outside, to figure out what others see.

Seen on a Bus

Seats appear at fifty from youth
who don’t surrender. What lines
are read on a face alone with itself,
a face that thinks: shuttered. Night
must slip out, the kind that curls
round ankles and pulls. How to hide
then? How to convey the tinkle of bells
in a field, the whiteness of daisies
against grass? She doesn’t know,
rearranges her lips blindly.

Okay. That was much better. And I was feeling happy. I loved the images of the tinkling of bells in a field, the whiteness of daisies against grass. Every time I read them, they made me happy.

Then I realized I was having a Sound of Music moment. I was channelling my inner Maria. My narrator was 50, for pete’s sake, not an 80 year old Swiss immigrant remembering being a milkmaid in the Alps.

So I cut those images. Yup. They were inappropriate in this poem. My narrator wanted to convey normality, she wanted to look professional.

Here’s the final version. I still like it. Which isn’t to say it won’t get edited again.

Seen on a Bus

Seats appear at fifty from youth
who don’t surrender. What lines
are read on a face alone with itself,
a face that thinks: shuttered. Night
must slip out, the kind that curls
round ankles and pulls. How to hide
then? How to convey the tidiness
of a desk, the neatness of files
against wood? She doesn’t know,
rearranges her lips blindly.

I write a poem a day no matter where I am, even if I’m on a plane over the Pacific Ocean, the origin of this poem. My one rule is to write down the first thing that comes into my head, though in this case my imagination was not my best friend. But I followed my golden rule where it led and out came a bad poem.

But bad poems can often be rescued. I liked the bones of this one, so over the next few weeks I returned to it, paring it down until I felt a clear voice was emerging.

Let’s look at the initial draft:

Plane Crash

First the crack at the back
the ripping of metal flesh
frantic announcements jumbled
with the orange fall of masks.
Air whistling past our ears
and the sound of a lone voice
gasping Abide with me as the plane
hurtles down, dark heads bent
over knees, hands gripping seat
backs until the hit, water’s great
flattening, the smoothing
of angry waves into quiet circles
a stone’s toss would make. We float
in pieces boats will search for.

Clichés are the first things in my poems to be cut. Abide with me may be my favourite hymn but, in this context, it’s a cliché I quickly ditched. I also didn’t like the phrases that sounded too much as if they came out of the plane’s safety features pamphlet, so ‘heads bent over knees, hands gripping seat backs’ were the next to be examined. I kept ‘dark heads’, separating the words by a line break to give the reader a sense of the darkness inside the plane. Then I added the word ‘fear’, which ideally you don’t want to name in a poem, since imagery should carry emotion to the reader. But I wanted to convey that sense of people turned into a pure emotion, one we can all relate to. And I didn’t want to do it with words. So I used fear as a shortcut.

After doing all this, I went to work deleting extraneous words and changing line breaks to build drama.

Here’s the next version:

Plane Crash

First the crack at the back
the ripping of metal flesh, frantic
announcements jumbled
with the orange fall of masks.
Air whistles past our ears
as the plane hurtles down, dark
heads bent over knees, fear
texting home, gripping seat backs
until
the hit, water’s great
flattening, the smoothing
of angry waves into quiet circles
a stone’s toss would make. We float
in pieces boats will search for.

Since I started writing this post, I’ve edited the poem eight more times, moving the line ‘air whistles past our ears’ to after ‘dark heads bent over’ and then deleting the ‘dark heads’ phrase entirely. I got rid of the melodrama of having ‘until’ on its own line. And while picturing the movement in the poem (always a useful exercise), I realized I’d better have the water ripple before it flattens. Also, I changed the title. It’s still not great (too close to cliché for my taste) but, for some bizarre reason, title-writing is not one of my gifts. If a good one doesn’t appear fully-formed, I’m struggling.

Then I went to work on the line endings again. I want this poem to create its own momentum, to pull the reader forward and down ‘until’ (which I worked to get on an end) the plane hits, when time slows, shown by the endings: ‘flattening’, ‘circles’, ‘float’.

Here’s the current final version. It’s not a long poem. It’s not a great poem. But it is a good one for me to practise my editing skills on. I expect it to undergo more drafts, so it may appear here again.

Crash Landing

First the crack at the back,
the ripping of metal flesh, frantic
words jumbled with the orange fall
of masks. Plane streaming down, air
whistling past ears as fear
texts home, grips seat backs until
we hit, water’s great rippling flattening,
smoothing into quiet circles
a stone’s toss would make. We float
in pieces boats will search for.