Lather, rinse, repeat

Revision. For me, revision is the difference between journaling and writing. If the sudden rush of words in a first draft are all heat and fire, then revision is about shaping and forming like a glass-blower. As a much younger writer I resisted revising my poetry, so in love with the first words was I. I have always been a ruthless editor of my prose, but it took time to come around to editing poetry. I’m not sure why. Perhaps, as a younger writer, I bought into the romantic imagery of poems arriving in toto on the page, deposited there by some generous muse. Now and then a poem still comes to me that way, but they’re rare. These days I revise everything.

My initial drafts are almost always written in my notebook. I carry it everywhere, either tucked into the undercarriage of the stroller or slipped into my bag; I no longer buy purses or shoulder bags I can’t fit my notebook into. I might start off by jotting notes on an image or a memory or an idea I’ve been toying with. I make some false starts. There is much crossing out; circling of lines or entire sections and drawing of arrows to the place they really belong; insertion of little asterics and fresh lines jotted at the bottom of the page. I wish I could scan a page from my notebook to show you what a mess the first round is. Eventually it becomes so chaotic that I have to copy it out again; at this point I generally type it up and print it out. The next round of revisions is also done by hand, on the printed page. When that page becomes too cramped to continue I type up the revised poem and print it out again. I do this as many times as I need to. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’ll spare you all the intermediary iterations of this poem – I’m not sure I could reconstruct them anyway – and just show you the first full draft and the current one. The first draft isn’t even really the first draft, as my notebook shows several false starts on this; some lines from those attempts did survive, though, and the moment behind the poem was there from the start. As for the current draft, I don’t think it’s the last draft but I do think it’s almost the last draft. For now.

Draft One: (I have four alternate titles on the first draft) Leaping? Swift Current Lake? Exaltation? Bound? (I have taken the liberty of fixing all the misspelled words I scattered along the way)

The only way to do it was to run
one two three four
down the short dock
where the canoes tied up
and close my eyes
when the air brushed the soles of my feet.
You’d gone ahead
(you always did)
shouting in blue lipped exaltation
and surfaced to shake your hair like a sheep dog
(you wore it long that year
like the boys did back then
with a courduroy jacket for school picture day)
I was the girl who eased into even indorr swimming pools
little toe top shin knobby knee skinny thigh
breaking out in goose flesh and rattling teeth
while you bounded off the board
getting it over with
and I took little steps, bound foot steps
tasting every degree.
But even I knew that there
under a feeble late summer Montana sun
the only way to do it was to run
one two three four
down the short dock
where the canoes tied up
and to close my eyes when the air brushed the soles of my feet.

Here’s the current draft:
Bound

The only way to do it was to run
one two three four
down the short dock where the canoes tied up
and to close my eyes
when the air licked the soles of my feet.

You’d taken flight ahead of me
(you always did),
surfaced to shake your hair like the stray dog
who’d claimed us the day before
and to shout in blue-lipped exaltation.

I was the girl who eased into indoor swimming pools
toe shin knee thigh
breaking out in goose flesh and rattling teeth.
You got it over with,
bounding off the high board.

But even I knew that here,
Montana in the fall,
the only way to do it was to run
one two three four
and then to surface shouting in blue-lipped exaltation.

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Peek at more revisions here.