editing - A New Poetics

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This, "Redemption," is the newest incarnation of my old "Entropy" poem, which I posted earlier on the blog:

“Redemption”

The leaves of summer heave in the heat
And give their gasps to drowning limbs
Which lend them drinks to calm their breaths--
Affairs of helpless, seedling love;

Leaf and limb cavort in golden light.

Solstitial wells begin to dry;
Weathered limbs withdraw their wine;
No tiny drops of Spring ambrosia
Will they spare in fading light
For leaves that quake in cooling wind.

Flushed with dim autumnal color,
The leaves expel their final breaths,
Then wither, curl, and die; the feeble limbs,
Soon gone cold, release the shriveled
Corpses into winter’s barren hands.

Naked branches, shaking in the cold,
Are kept from new baptismal wine,
Frozen manna stacked in mounds
Of white about their feet--

Suspended healing hangs
Between the shadow and the light,
Waiting for the resurrection
Of the sun to plant the seeds of Spring

And give repentant trees their leaves,
Restore the breath to broken lungs,
Give life to frozen hearts,
And send redemption
Back to the blood.

I added everything from "Naked branches" and on, stretching the poem to have more meaning and ambiguity. I altered some phrases and words, deleting some things and substituting some things to better enhance the flow of the poem. There are lots of little changes, which I won't go into in detail. Here is the first version for comparative purposes:

The summer leaves gasp in the heat,
Giving their breath to drowning limbs
That offer them drinks in return:
A symbiotic love affair.
Painful pleasure, helpless helping;
Breathless branches grip the sighing leaves.

Solstitial wells begin to dry;
Breaths are fewer, drink is scarcer--
Clutching limbs begin to wither.
They cannot spare a drop for leaves
That blush with slowing, weary breaths
And quiver in the cooling wind.

Flushed with dimming evening colors,
The leaves have ceased their troubled breaths.
Branches clasp the lovely corpses;
They grow cold. Winter’s icy hand
Tears them away; the limbs are left
Naked and alone, swaying in the wind.

And here is the second version:

The summer leaves gasp in the heat,
Giving their breath to drowning limbs
That offer them drinks in return;
A symbiotic love affair--
Sighing leaves caressing breathless boughs.

Solstitial wells begin to dry;
Breaths are fewer, drink is scarcer.
Clutching limbs begin to wither--
They cannot spare a drop for leaves
That blush with slowing, weary breaths
And quiver in the cooling breeze.

Flushed with dimming evening colors,
The leaves soon cease their troubled breaths.
Branches clasp the withered corpses;
Soon grown cold, the hand of winter
Tears them apart, leaving the limbs
Alone and cold, swaying in the wind.

Now compare these two with the newest version, the one at the top. Can you see what I did? Some of the changes are subtle and small; they're obvious to me, but of course they are, since I'm the one who made the changes in the first place. I changed some phrasing, altered some images, replaced some words and deleted others to better preserve the poem's integrity. Once a poem's word-choice and structure call attention to themselves instead of enhancing what the words are saying, then the poem is shoddy and needs revision.

Did I do a good job with this newest version? Well, I like it; but that's not saying much, because most writers like what they write--at least at first they do. If any of you have comments or suggestions to make about the poem, I'm all ears--well, eyes, really. One thing I won't change ever is the word 'solstitial.' It fits the rhythm perfectly, and it fits nicely into the puzzle of the poem. Solstitial is the adjective form of the word Solstice, which is twice a year when either the day is longest--in summer--or the night is longest--in winter. In this poem it could be taken either way, really. The wells of winter would be like melted snow, and the wells of summer are summer rain. Summer is more likely here, since it's referring back to the first stanza during summer.

Hope you all enjoy the poem, and if you have any comments, don't hesitate to say something! Good night everyone!

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, free verse, writing poetry, editing

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Poetic Evolution--Trapping the Stars

January 31st 2009 16:15

A while back I posted a poem called "Trapping the Stars." Here it is in that original incarnation:

Soul’s door spreads wide
For stars to move in,
Webbing the velvet void
In nets of smoking silver;

Heart’s hall invites
The whispering winds
To nestle near the hearth
And fan the dwindling flame;

Stars stowed indoors
Shed no light and burn
Their cage into heaps ash,
Blazing into distant darkness--

Wild wind entrapped
Will languish, giving
No spark to withered fire,
Drifting through drafty walls

To freedom.
Heart and soul must venture out
To find the light and light the fire.

Well after a while of it simmering in my brain-pot, I decided I didn't like it at all. The rhythm was all wrong and it was clunky and awkward, and I felt I didn't really get out the ideas that I wanted to. So I changed it.

But instead of condensing it--as I've done with other poetry--I expanded upon it; the poem evolved, matured, into something new and (in my opinion) better. Here's the new version of "Trapping the Stars":

The door of my soul is spread wide,
Luring the winter stars
To lend their light
And web this silent void
With glowing nets of silver lace;

This frigid hall my heart calls home
Invites the mountain winds
To bring fresh air
As food for dying flames
That choke on ashes long since spent.

But stars confined within these walls,
Losing their living light,
Break the brittle
Cage and take their leaving,
Blazing into distant darkness;

When savage wind is kept in chains,
Its breaths will slow and die
And give no spark
To chilling flames, and soon
Will be reborn in open skies.

To try and take the light of life
And keep it in a place
So dense with dark
Can only end in pain:
Regret will be the only food
For fools who try to trap the stars.

As you can see, I made the poem longer, which is the opposite of what I did with my poem "Ripples." Instead of clipping and pruning the excess verbage off the poem like I did before, I cultivated the little seedling poem and helped it blossom into a strong, leafy tree that can stand on its own.

This also goes along with what I had said about Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope is the Thing with Feathers" poem. With the original version of "Trapping the Stars," I tried too hard to make it 'free verse,' something that I'm not too good at. I was working outside my sphere of expertise, and the result was clunky, awkward, immature, and unfinished. If I'd clipped stuff off of that poem, it only would have become even more awkward and unfinished.

I changed it to have a better, more flowing meter and more concise structure throughout. I generally kept the iambic standard, except for the first two lines. The first line--which can be interpreted several ways--I read as "the DOOR of my SOUL is spread WIDE," as being `~ (`=unstressed, ~= stressed, | = boundary between feet) Ok, so the first line I thought was `~|``~|``~| which is 1 iamb and 2 anapests; definitely a free verse line. But some scholars and academics might make the argument that the line is really `~`|`~`|`~|, which is 2 amphibrachs and an iamb. But at that point it's just splitting hairs; besides, someone else might have a completely different stress pattern than me, anyway. The 2nd line, "LURing the WINter STARS" or ~`|`~|`~| is 1 trochee and 2 iambs. Again, academics might say that it's ~``|~`~|, 1 dactyl and 1 cretic. But again, that would just be splitting hairs.

The rest of the poem is pretty firmly iambic, except for the last 4 lines of the 3rd stanza, which are trochaic: "LOSing their LIVing LIGHT/ BREAK the BRIttle/ CAGE and TAKE their LEAVing/ BLAZing INto (or into) DIStant DARKness." I like switching an iambic poem up with some trochaic, because I feel the trochaic foot feels more urgent than the iamb; it's a bit more galloping, giving a sense of emotional quickness, whereas the iamb is more relaxed and natural feeling. AKA: I made those lines trochaic on purpose, whether the effect I just described was felt by other readers.

It's fine to play around with meter and feet as long as it's done with intention. Like the old saying goes, you need to learn the rules before you can break them. Whether I did so successfully in the new version of "Trapping the Stars" isn't up to me to decide. All I know is I definitely did everything in this poem--the images, the lines, the meter--with intention, so at least I can sleep well with the knowledge that I knew what I was doing. If the poem is actually "good" then I can say that I did a "good" job; but that's for other people to decide.

Have a nice day everyone!

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, writing poetry, meter, editing

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Poetic Budding--Sunrise

January 23rd 2009 03:20

"Sunrise"

The sun will rise, fresh and bright,
To cast off the dark of night.
Grayness clings to everything
But dies with the dawn that brings

Color to the faded world;
Light into dark unfurled
Like banners of a king.
A new day's start the dawn will sing.

So, you know how some organisms reproduce asexually? One of those processes is called budding. This is when a new, similar organism grows by itself right off the original organism and eventually comes off, becoming its own independent entity.

Well, that's what happened with this poem. While I was writing "Darkness Deposed"--which can be found earlier on this blog--this poem just kind of sprang into existence. While I was crafting the images and pruning and shaping the form of that longer poem, I got tired and needed a break. During that break I jotted this poem down, revised it later (this is the revised version) and liked it enough that I kept it alongside "Darkness Deposed."

I like this poem because it's short and to-the-point. I feel that it flows nicely, is quite concise, and that the rhyme scheme isn't too awkward or flashy. Coming from my perspective as a believer in Jesus Christ, I also wrote the poem with the double meaning of "light" coming in to destroy evil. Also, images of the second coming came into my head too, with the light coming like banners of a king. But I don't mind if other people take it to mean different things.

I might make "Poetic Budding" an irregularly regular topic, along with Condensed Poetry. I may even feature this poem's early and late incarnations for a future segment of Condensed Poetry.

Another image/metaphor I used here that I enjoy--and might use for future poems--is the idea of light also bringing color. When it's dark, you can't see colors, or at least they're very faded and washed out, like an old VHS black-and-white movie. When your life has no light in it--no joy, no clarity--everything is dull and drab. But insert some color, some light, into your life--joy, clarity, sight--and the gray turns to gold.

Hope you all have a good night/day.

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, writing poetry, editing

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Darkness Deposed

January 15th 2009 18:31

That time of night when you might behold
a slit of light, gray and cold, slowly
opening the east, the dawn is told

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: free verse, writing poetry, meter, editing

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Condensed poetry- Howl

January 8th 2009 18:00

Here's another poem which I changed since its original incarnation. Thankfully I changed this one in time for it to be put in the chapbook. It's called "Howl," and this is the original:

Orchestral keening kicks blood

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