I’ve been working (again) on organizing girl show and think I finally have it. Sections no less. It was just too much too much as one long non-breaking collection—I think we need some breathing room between poems. A good place to pause, to go get some tea and a snack, go to the bathroom (if you’re the sort to read books strictly front to back..) So I’m thinking of the structure of sideshow/carnival experience—the teaser, the collection, and the big show—aka, as section titles “ballyhoo,” “menagerie,” and “bump and grind.” The poems that will go in the first section are the lures, the tease, the beginnings of things that happen in the book, since a lot of things are threaded through the whole thing (body image-issues, the grotesque, transformation, identity/disguise, categorization). The second, the menagerie, are more static poems, a lot of them personas and portraits, less tease, more substance, also more weirdness. And the third, where things start to happen. The really volatile poems, the angrier, more disturbing, more frenetic pieces end up here. Of course, I’m still unsure in a few cases where certain poems belong, but hopefully I’ll figure that out. I still have titles and ideas for about eight more pieces as well, though I sort of know where they’ll go in the end. The cummulative effect will be as if you were wandering deeper and deeper through the spectacles. Granted, it's not all sideshow poems, but the regular poems have a sideshow feel and vice-versa.
In other news, Chaucer will hopefully be interesting enough to keep me awake on those early days (Tues & Thurs. I go to work at 10am, go to class from 12:20 to 3:30, then go back to work til 10 pm. in order to put in a 8 hr. day) If not, there may not be enough caffeine in the world. I do like Chaucer’s passive aggressive snarkiness, so THAT should at least be interesting. And admittedly, this is a gap in my education (of course, I’m sure I’ve forgotten nearly everything I learned in the first round of grad school anyway). Mainly I wanted the daytime classes so I could get everything out of the way during the week, still close the library every night, and have free and clear blissful two whole day weekends. It may very well kill me before semester’s end. But at least this is the last one.
