During Kroger's back-to-school sale, when spiral-bound notebooks are ridiculously cheap, I can't seem to resist picking up a couple more to add to my stack. They're perfect for my purpose. I use them as commonplace books. If you like scrapbooking, you'll love assembling your own version. My first drafts of a poem are always in longhand, and I use the front of each notebook for these starts, printing out and pasting subsequent revisions after I switch over to the computer. I am a material girl (sadly, the only similarity Madonna and I share) and I appreciate having something I've made that I can hold in my hands. The back of the notebook is saved for ephemera, for clippings, quotations, photos, cartoons, other poets' poems, anything that I consider inspirational. I often look through these entries for poem-starts. And when the poems run into the ephemera, it's time to begin a new notebook. I use the front cover to list and date the poems within. If my computer ever blows up or the cloud disappears, Luddite that I am, my poems, like Gloria Gaynor, will survive. Below, an amazing poem by Margaret Atwood that gives me the shivers, and a way into a poem. The first of many revisions: From the back of the notebook (I love this cartoon): Mama Wolf tells the boy, "You say 'raised by wolves' like it's a bad thing." The finished notebook with stars for poems ready to send out:
0 Comments
#10 There are two kinds of people . . .
Whenever this opening pops into my head as I begin a piece of writing - it’s happened more than once - a little voice asks, really? only two? However, it is safe to say that there are those who find lists helpful, who make them part of their everyday life (and feckless others who don’t - sorry, can't help myself). I belong to a subset, dysfunctional list-makers. (I’d give us an acronym but in Dayton, Ohio, where I live, DLM is pretty much owned by Dorothy Lane Market, the local upscale grocery.) I make shopping lists and leave them home or lose them. I make long lists of books to check out from the library or of Netflix shows to watch, and then never look at them again. Sometimes I’ll make a list after the fact just so I can cross out what’s already been accomplished. I’ve made a list of family and friends’ birthdays, apparently just so I can consult it after the fact in order to send belated greetings. It doesn’t matter; I love my lists. In writing my novel, An Invitation to the Party, however, lists finally began to earn their keep. A main character, Colt, had custody of his daughter every other weekend. A list of dates for all the weekends she spent with him proved handy as the story progressed in making sure Meg was never in two places at once. The running list of quoted poetry excerpts I used and the page numbers on which they could be found, proved invaluable as I revised, adding and subtracting, or changing things around. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear” (words the Buddha, sadly, never uttered) could be reframed in my case as “when the need arises, a list appears.” I repeat, I love my lists! |
We tend to write about what we know. I am a writer, thus this blog: Why write? What, when, where to write? Stay tuned. Archives
April 2024
|