from "Mothers" by Nikki Giovanni

the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm
comforting silence around
us and read separate books

Blogging about Revision

I am asking my students to blog about revision, as if it were interesting or important. I wonder if they think it is. I admire people who believe, with Ginsburg, "First thought, best thought," but I've very rarely seen it in a student (though several have tried to adhere to it) and never in myself. For me, the first thought is the beginning. From there, the next thought, and the edit, and another thought, another edit, and so on.

It can be dangerous.

On the other hand (oh yes!) I believe the first concept is the crucial concept. If something is awry with the initial impetus, no edit or revision will turn that dreck to gold. Here, I go with T. E. Lawrence:

All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!

And you? How do you see it?

Revision Pointer from a Pro

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

--Anton Chekhov

The amazing human and poet Frank O'Hara

Thanks to Selina for posting one O'Hara poem, which reminded me of this one which I love sharing with friends:

Autobiographia Literaria

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

from the Armory Art Fair 2011

A Deep Mystery: How to Be Helpful when Workshopping Fiction?

It's hard to know what is helpful when reading each other's fiction, both as a teacher and as a student. For workshops, however, I try to stick to a system much as we did with poetry that will help the writer hear what others are reading in her or his text. In general, we talk a lot about strengthening the conflict, though that is a very old-fashioned way to think about fiction. We talk too in phrases like "What is at stake?" This translates loosely to, Why should I bother following these people across the pages? What difference do these events and scenes really make to their lives. This too is only somewhat helpful. Yet with these imperfect means we must begin.

1. Situation: What is happening in this story? What is the POV--the point from which we know anything? Remember: there are an infinite number of ways to tell a story. Why is it being told this way?

2. Characters: Is the hero/antihero believable? Are the people around her or him believable? Do we know what these people want?

3. Conflict: What is the problem here? (This is often, but not always, the 'reason' for the story.) Is this problem big enough to hold my interest? Does it arise soon enough in the narrative? (Closely linked to: What [or where] is the emotional center of this piece?)

4. Setting: Where am I? Is this place real? What metaphors does the setting provide?

5. Resolution: Does the whole hold together? Does the ending belong in the version of reality that has been created by the story?

All up for discussion.

Class Today!

Looking forward to seeing my students at 12:30. We will end at 1:25, so that I can catch the 1:38 bus. Here is a famous Wallace Stevens poem about winter in case you were feeling too chipper.

The Snow Man

                                         by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.