I’ve been struggling with a poem over the last few days, something to put together for submission. I have an ambivalent relationship with poetry–at least when I try my hand at it. I prefer the modernists. End-rhyme makes me nauseous. Sentimentality gives me the hives; and yet poetry can do so much, and sentiment matters when it’s genuine. But how does one compose the genuine? Forget you, Mr. Wordsworth, and your spontaneous overflowing.
This particular poem centers on Gallup, New Mexico during the pandemic. I like Wallace Stevens’ abstractions and William Carlos William’s compact stanzas, but I realized that I would need to wax lyrical at some point–maybe a little T.S. Eliot. I’m not sure about the result–and it’s still in progress–but I did learn something about the potentials and limits of using different technologies at different stages. For poetry, the typewriter and handwriting matter most at the beginning. Variations accumulate in the margins, and I resist hasty deletion. Sure, an embarrassing turn of phrase won’t make the cut, but the trace of that idea might lead to something else. When I write on a computer, I’m more likely to delete lines in a fit of embarrassment.
I’m working on a horror poem at the same time–for Cold Hard Type–and I began that work on a computer. Whole stanzas disappeared into the ether, and this editorial habit prevented me from realizing the full idea of the poem. The minutiae took over. In fact, that poem is moving too slowly, and I’ve lost much of the generative energy behind its central idea. In this case, I’ll have to retype it on a typewriter and use a pen to generate new ideational pathways.
For the Gallup poem, on the other hand, I had to abandon the typewriter after several drafts. I needed to focus on moving lines and stanzas with speed and ease in order to match the compositional process. The large concepts were settled, but the details needed reshuffling. I’m not sure if it’s any good. I’m too close to it–and a little tired of it–but the computer reset the creative vector. Will I have to go back to the typewriter? Perhaps. Here is the current, digital draft. (My previous post shows the typescripts.)
Call and Response, Gallup 2020
I
The gnarled hands
of a thornless locust
gesture skyward
into bluing, looming
distant over the coral
gravel of the RV park,
its roots quaking beneath
the girth of the BSNF.
Fifth-wheels lean
into gelid wind–
snow-capped tombstones,
dominoes in freeze-frame;
but all things erode
faster than the blink
of an eye, under
the gaze of Church Rock:
Route 66,
Fire Rock Casino,
Marathon Petroleum–
dinosaurs adrift.
II
Just back from Fort Defiance,
a first responder
eases a Mustang
along a Montana.
The day unmasked,
he idles in snowfall,
mouthing the last words
of an old woman:
Born during the Dust Bowl
in one of them Hoovervilles.
Still got my husband’s
Purple Heart from ’45.
In Diné she said goodbye
over Facetime
to a family of nine
quarantined on the rez.
She wheezed like red canyons,
her eyes a glimmering
Boulder turquoise
reaching through pixels
to a girl swaddling a doll
with hair like a river
woven from stories
looking for answers.
He idled in the snowfall
under the thornless locust,
finding a medal
in his breast pocket.
III.
Behind USA RV
flakes accumulate
like cold, white songs
over desert brush,
but the trail
connecting
Western Skies
is still visible,
and, beyond that,
the small brown horse,
still as daylit moons,
waits for the spring
when the thornless locust
greens in Gallup,
reaching into the bluing,
renewing stories.
The Untimely Typewriter:Daily Writings Against the Tides of Distraction 
I think it’s good, really good in places, but maybe not polished to its final resting place, to mix metaphors. Some of the “and” “but” “the” words I though superfluous, too grammatically correct for real impact. That’s all my negatives, and I hope you don’t mind me mentioning them. I did so because the rest of it is superb. The snowflakes as cold white songs will live with me for a long time.
LikeLike
Thanks for the help, Rob. You’re right. I need parse this down. I have a hard time breaking out of prose, and, since this is narrative, the tendency is even greater.
LikeLike
Yeah, but bear in mind I don’t really know what I’m talking about! Truly. 🙂 I don’t do narrative poetry, so maybe what you are doing sits firmly in the genre. BTW, I also enjoyed your sharing of the poem in the making. We don’t get to see that often enough, hardly ever, but it really reveals a mind at work. Keep it up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you think that “bluing, looming” line is too much?
LikeLike
I wouldn’t say it raised my eyebrow, but it did twitch a little…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m marred by Dylan Thomas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I doubt I could be any help as poetry illiterate as I am. If you were programming in C or Python, perhaps I could add my 2 cents worth.
I do like your poem. After I read Rob’s comment, I read the poem again. His suggestions make it a bit more readable for me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Bill. Yeah, Rob whittles down words. I have a hard time breaking out of prose.
LikeLike