I have a thing where I tend spew out a bunch of words for a poem because I like the way they sound more than they convey the idea I'm trying to get at. I can never edit my own poems very well until I've ignored them for a while. Usually the longer I ignore it the easier it is to decide whether it can be saved or not. If weeks later I can see something there that I really like, or is worth trying to say the same the same thing a different way, I will put some effort into the rewrite.
I've always wanted to describe my ideas behind editing things. What better way to do that than to use something of my own that I edited. Ladies and Gentleman I give you Champagne Song the OG version:
Safely tucked away alone at home
the fog filled ocean breeze
carries a whispered song into me.
It may not be a siren’s song
but I feet a lesser lure
draw me closer to the coast.
There, among the dense
swirling mist of a chilled morning,
I find the neck of an emptied
champagne bottle caught
in a tangle of mermaid hair seaweed.
The whispered song drifts
from its mouth as the
wind drags itself
over the opening.
Inside a wild iris,
with its soft purple petals,
rests at the bottom
guiding the tune
the wind plays off the lips
of the of the bottle.
Checking to see that I am alone
on the fog drenched beach,
I lift the bottle from
its nest of mermaid locks.
Hold it to my ear
trying to hear the words
to unlock all the secrets
it wants to confess.
The sun melts the fog
revealing the empty bottle
laden coastline before me.
The wild iris blinks
in the sunlight
and a wind picks up
the collective wailing song
of so many other lost empties.
Losing the wild iris words
in this melodic drone,
I whisper my own secrets
to the flower’s delicate petals.
Only to hear my words
drowned out in the static of waves.
I sit, still alone, among
everyone else’s discarded empties.
and my own lost voice.
Where to begin? What don't I like about it? Start with the things you don't like about it:
Well I wrote this back during my time doing the Dirty Dozen workshop. At the time I was really interested in creating a very narrative story in my poems. I would get this images in my head and want to walk through them. I think a lot of them had really forced beginnings because I felt like I needed to justify the presence of the image by giving it a location and introducing myself as someone walking into the image. I don't like the way it turns out usually. This poem is no exception. The beginning has got to go.
The interesting part is the wild iris, not the speaker sitting around and eventually going to find it. I get too narrative in this poem, creating a scene to justify each image. This is not something that is bad in and of itself, but doing this too much will lead to watering down the metaphors. The images get lost in the narrative.
The reaction to the song is also something I want to keep. It ties it together. Creates and event and a reaction; which is the essential idea in the first one except it gets lost in the retelling of the event. The event needs to be happening in a more present sense of experiencing not retelling. Kurt Vonnegut said that you shouldn't ever have a sentence in your story that doesn't either reveal character or advance the plot. Get to the point and bare your soul from the get go.
Okay so that's what I had in mind before I rewrote the poem. I wanted to capture the main idea and the imagery, but without getting lost in the narrative. I wanted it to be an evocation of the experience, not a story about what it felt like to feel that.
Version 2
In the still movements of
a foggy morning at the beach,
a wild iris sits in a tangle of mermaid hair
composing a song for the drifting wind.
I settle in,
mesmerized by the gesticulating flower.
Its movements remind me
of wishes I made years ago.
The wild iris blinks
and fog melts off the coastline
revealing a glass orchestra
of champagne bottles.
Wind drifts through
the soft purple petals
playing an off-key opera
I wish I remembered loving already.
The lyrics are deja vu
on the tip of my tongue.
The song fills my head
as the wind dies out and the fog rolls back in.
I want whisper my own secrets
as lyrics to the winking iris,
but I my voice is enough
in the repetitious static
of fog and waves.
So that's it. That's what I got from leaving my poem alone for weeks and then finally getting back to it. I like the new poem more. This poem will probably go through more editing before I'm done with it, but that won't be for a while I don't think. I'll post any updates to it.
