This week’s revision activity at Read Write Poem was to cut a poem down to half its original length. I took a poem I haven’t looked at in a while, but that I wasn’t satisfied with the last time I did look at it. I think the shorter version is more succinct and has more impact, but I wonder if losing the details takes away from the meaning of the poem. Comments? Please?
Revised Version:
A bird flapped its wings, tap-tapping
on the window with the point of her beak. It chirped the way Gram used to sneeze,
sounding more like the name of a gas station
than the “achoo” I’d been taught. If she’d taught me to sneeze like she’d taught me to build
houses out of decks of playing cards,
I’d sneeze like that today. I wonder if I sneezed like that would the bird understand me.
Would we communicate
through sneezing? I recognize the Mickey Mouse broach she always wore on her blouse–
the bird’s chest has a marking in the same shape.
Original version:
Mom told me she and her
mom saw a bird tap-
tapping on the dining room
window several times after
her step-father died. She
said the bird stayed
a few days, tapping sometimes
with his beak to say
“hello.”
Mom and I sat
at the dining room table
in her mom’s house a day
after she died. A bird flapped
its wings, tap-tapping
on the window with the point
of her beak.
I don’t know what
kind of bird it was, not even
the color, but I might have heard
it screech the way Gram
used to sneeze, sounding more like
the name of a gas station
than the “achoo” I’d been taught.
If she’d taught
me to sneeze like she’d
taught me to throw pennies
in driveways of families
with kids so the kids could
find them and be happy
for a day, I’d sneeze
like that today.
I wonder if I sneezed
like that would the bird
understand me. Would we
communicate through
sneezing? “Sneeze” is a
universal occurrence that
happens when a small foreign
substance enters our airways,
but the bird is not foreign.
The bird is my
grandmother, my mother’s
mother. I know this because
I recognize the pin
she always wore on her blouse–
the bird’s chest has a marking
in the same shape.
For this Monday’s Makeover at Read Write Poem, I revised a poem that I wrote for an earlier RWP prompt. The poem is “bird body.” Again, I didn’t follow the revision structure for the group, but I did revise. Please leave comments on what works better/worse than in the original. Thanks!
Revised version:
Sun shines at just the right angle
against the picture window,
light splashing off the sheet of glass.
Stretched wings shimmering, wind slipping
in and out of layered feathers,
a bird glides towards warmth.
After the thud of muscle on glass,
the settling of feathers like seed pods
helicoptering to earth,
after the smear of grease and blood has crusted the glass,
the indent of green below the window
cradles the body,
and all around it life continues to happen.
Original version:
When the sun shines at just the right
angle against the big glass window, a bird
always dies. Stretched wings shivering
with sunbath, wind slipping in and out
between its layered feathers, it glides towards
warmth. In that glare of sun splashing off
the sheet of glass the bird sees something
worth going after, no matter the consequences.
After the thud of muscle to glass, after the settling
of feathers like maple pods helicoptering
to the ground, after the smear of grease and blood
has crusted over on the glass, the incident of grass
below the window cradles the body, and all around it
the truth continues to happen.
I need to come up with a better title for this. This is a revision I’ve done of a poem I wrote for an RWP Celebrity Prompt. I didn’t follow the revision guidelines, but have certainly worked on this piece a lot in my own way. The original poem is below the new version in this post. Please comment on what works better/worse than in the original. I am also looking for a word to use in place of “tears” in the last stanza, second-to-last line. Thank you!
New version:
I put a snowball in the freezer. In July, I reach in
for some ice cream and my fingers brush against winter.
Cobalt blue flashes across my eyelids. Your heavy jacket,
same colour as the sky that day. I didn’t notice in December
the texture of the ice, crystalline structures fused to form
this wintry ball. I didn’t notice the colour of your jacket
but I recall it now. What I can’t remember is what we did
after we went inside. Did we sit by the wood stove as blood
rushed back to our fingers and toes? Or did we part then,
you to your house, me alone at the stove, wishing
you had stayed longer? I only remember that cobalt blue, the sky,
your jacket, the way the snow balls you threw hit
like punches in the gut, each one a little more nauseating,
signs of adolescent desire landing on my hip, my shoulder,
my cheek, and splattering into frozen tears. My salty eyes
showed my ignorance. Your face a confection of fear and sympathy.
Old version:
Winter’s heaved on us a snowy groundcloth. We jump
to avoid the black slush of tire-trodden snow. Heavy
trucks with pointed noses carve space into white fluff.
Four weeks later, plow piles edge car parks, a mere
memory of snow days and sledding hills, tricking us
into believing it’s still winter. I put a snowball in
the freezer. In July, I reached in for some ice cream and let
my fingers brush against winter. Is this a memory?
Funny how I didn’t notice in December the texture
of the ice, crystalline structures that fused to form
this wintry ball. I didn’t notice the colour of your heavy
jacket, bright cobalt blue, same as the sky
that day, but I remember it now, these sacred, everyday
things. What I can’t remember is what we did
after we went inside. Did we sit by the wood stove as blood
rushed back into our extremities? Or did we part then, each
to our own homes, wishing we had stayed longer in each other’s
company? I only remember that cobalt blue, the sky,
your jacket, and the way the snow balls you threw hit me
like punches in the gut, each one a little more nauseating,
the signs of unrequited love landing on my hip, my shoulder,
my cheek, and splattering into mashed potatoes. Your face
a confection of fear and sympathy.
This is my second in a 5-day series of related poems, prompted by the Mini-Challenge at Read Write Poem.
He became the girl in the photograph. He stopped
cutting his hair and bought some bras. He had to buy
training bras because the real ones were too big.
He wore sundresses and sandals and braided
his hair, and he wove ribbons into his braids.
The girl in the photograph was furious. She didn’t want
somebody else to become her. She wanted to stay
herself and she wanted to be the only her in the world,
but she couldn’t make him leave her photograph.
He said he was learning, that he wouldn’t stay for a long
time. He danced with her friends and ate her mom’s
pea soup and talked politics with her dad, and nobody
suspected a thing. Then after a day he left the photograph
and the girl was happy to have her self back.
This month’s Mini-Challenge at Read Write Poem is to write a poem with five sections. I’m taking it slightly differently, and writing five poems that are connected to one another. (At least, that’s the plan. Things could change.) Here’s my first installment:
The girl in the photograph looks out
at the world of the living, wishing she were
there. She imagines it’s better than
her world; she needs it to be better. She is
laughing because the person holding
the photograph put his thumb in her armpit
and it tickles. When he puts down
the photograph, he walks to the store
and buys a camera. He wears it around
his neck and takes photographs of people
he would like to know. He takes twenty-four
photographs and then he takes the film to the store
and gets it developed. When the photographs
are developed, he takes them home
and lies them out on his kitchen table. He chooses
one and climbs into it, becomes the girl in
the picture. He learns about her and lives
her life for a few hours, then climbs back
out and chooses another photograph. He does
this with all twenty-four photographs. In photograph
fifteen he recognizes somebody from photograph eight
and he thinks that the person in photograph eight and the person
in photograph fifteen must known each other
because they both know the same person. And now
he thinks that he must know a lot of people,
twenty-four at least. Then he buys another roll of film.
Meanwhile, the laughing girl in the photograph he held
with his thumb is happy in her photograph life. She met
a photograph partner and lives happily ever after.
