April 25:

Up until now–now being now, this very moment of now–I had heard many times, but never paid attention to, the saying that “writing is re-writing.” Sure my first drafts were (and are) as terrible as everyone else’s, but it only ever took a couple tweaks, a couple word choice issues, a couple line breaks, and I would consider it done. It was this, or the entire poem was forfeit. But I had read horror stories of people writing poems–not very long poems, mind you, and sometimes not even good ones–for years before they considered them publishable. Then there were people like Mark Strand, who would write stunning, gorgeous, world-altering poems like “Keeping Things Whole” on a napkin, in 15 minutes, between poker games. So what gives?

What I am now realizing, is that, to some extent, I didn’t have the 5th, 6th, 7th, 100th draft of a poem because I never wrote them down. Because I was so infrequent in actually putting pen to paper, many poems had been edited down before I had written them. This must have been somewhat the case because, now that I am writing on legal pad every day, I am finding myself rewriting as much as I am writing. And what I am noticing is that this rewriting is mainly compression: six verses in one draft will suddenly become three in another, and become one in the next. Images are rearranged, some are cut, some are held in limbo. I do still have poems that are like bolts of lightning, but if lightning struck every day, then everybody would be out flying kites. More often, it would seem, I am observing the clouds gather and part, day after day, until finally the rain falls and I can collect it in a mason jar. For safe keeping.