It's Early Saturday Afternoon

and the November sun is white on the asphalt outside my kitchen window, fractured in places with shadows of tree branches that slowly drift back and forth along the ground. So far, I’ve eaten breakfast with my wife and watched two episodes of Malcolm in the Middle. I don’t think I’m going to do much writing today, I spent this past week grading 66 essays and I’m on the verge of brain-dead. 

Two poems accepted this month, and one journal asked for revisions on an essay, which was subsequently rejected after I sent the revisions. I knew it would be, the essay has issues I’m not quite sure how to fix, and my revisions were just paint and trim when walls needed tearing down.

One poem was accepted without reservation, the other acceptance came with a suggestion for revision, which really surprised me. I know prose editors sometimes ask for revisions, or provide commentary, but never for poetry. At least not in my limited experience. I have theories on why this happens. Poetry editors see more individual pieces than prose editors (a theory within a theory), and also, to suggest a change in a poem implies understanding, of either the poem or what the author is trying to accomplish, and I think many people are afraid they’ll miss something important about a poem, and a suggestion will reveal their stupidity. I don’t think that should be an issue, but I suspect it sometimes is.   

Here’s what I read in October. 

What this editor suggested for my poem was fairly drastic—a two page poem was cut down to…twelve lines, I think? I was happy to accept the changes, but I was also fascinated with them. I kept rereading my original version, than looking back at the suggested revision, trying to see it from the reader’s perspective.

Right now, I have a lot of poems that I like, but would like a whole lot more if the beginnings were a little more striking. So that will probably be my project for next week. Tweak some early lines, and get another batch of poems ready to send out into the world.