On editing your poem after it's already "out there." Last week I had the most amazing experience. An editor contacted me. Christopher White wanted to put my poem, Lathered, on his blog and do a review of it. White is the editor of The Akrocentric Blog. He's also Editor-in-Chief of Rager Media, in Akron. It is not an overstatement to say that his kind words made my day, my week, and maybe my year.
The poet's life is a lonely one. And then, this! To be understood and appreciated is everything. Everything.
So, when I started to have nagging thoughts about a line in the poem that had never quite sat right, I tried to tell myself to forget it. I'd already worked on that line more than the entire poem, and it was what it was. But before I knew it, I was rewriting that line again--the cat line--for the thousandth time.
The trouble was, none of the new lines seemed right, either. I had about given up, when Friday rolled along. I had two hours until the poetry reading at Muggswigz in Canton, and no resolution about the cat line in Lathered.
Friday had been a strange kind of day. I started off with an hour of yoga and a half hour on the treadmill, but still felt sleepy and not quite awake all day. Now I was yawning. Yawning! I couldn't do a reading like that.
I decided to try an old college trick. When I had an exam, I'd study like mad until the last hour. Then, when I was sure I couldn't remember a thing and would fail the test miserably, I'd lie down on the twin bed in the dormitory and tell myself I might as well take a half hour nap. It couldn't hurt, and might take the edge off. I'd wake up in time, without an alarm (I have no idea how), go to the test, and find my memory restored.
About 5 p.m. on Friday April 4th, when I closed my eyes, the last thing I thought about was the cat line in Lathered. I was so unsettled by the feeling that it wasn't quite right, that I'd resigned myself to not reading the poem.
But when I woke, I had the line. The perfect line. I penciled it in, and went to the reading, and it worked. The line delivered.
Here's the old line:
in the cat locked in a closet after falling asleep on a shoe
And here's the new line:
in the cat stuck in a closet, waking the door
I like them both, but I think the first one might be construed to be a cat peacefully sleeping in the closet, when that is not what I meant at all. I meant a cat who'd woken from a nap and found the door closed. I meant a cat who was frantic, and angry, and wanted out. That cat.
I think the clawing and screeching comes through more clearly in the second line with the word "waking," and that's why I've changed it. It also calls up the minor chord of a cat trying to wake its master in the morning for food.
The hard part was telling the editor. I had no idea how he'd react. But he's a great guy, even said he likes the new line. I'd said either way was OK with me. As far as I know, White has opted to leave the poem as it was originally posted on The Akrocentric, and that's fine. They're both Lathered. And I'm not a bit lathered about it.
More Blogs by Rae Hallstrom • Writing for your Life - Friday, May 22, 2009 • Lathered, a writer's dilemma - Monday, April 7, 2008 • Rae's Take - Thursday, August 21, 2003
