So far, I'm still sticking with the title, but I think I have come to the point with the new poems that I am ready to begin putting them in order. Right now, they are sort of a chaotic pile of things. So far I have the first three poems decided upon and not much else. I nearly forgot how hard this is. Now, I remember how long and involved ordering the fever almanac was, probably the most difficult. I used to take each poem and make painstaking marginal notes as to what was going on, how it fit with other poems. Since I tended to get distracted at home by various things, I took to forcing myself into cafés to work on it, and then spent an entire two week span when I was on vacation in the summer of 05’ determining the final order…The only thing that saved it from being a total nightmare was a bit of narrative, a timeline, that in some ways determined what came next. The second book wasn’t so bad, since it consisted largely of series that already had somewhat of an order as chapbooks. At one point I think I had everything sort of sorted out, but the poems didn’t have the same impact as they do when grouped together. girl show, oddly, once I had determined the sections (which took a while), the poems fell into them rather nicely despite the sress of it being my thesis, and feeling like too many people were looking over my shoulder. This book seems different , though. No one is looking over my shoulder, thank god, but there also isn’t really a narrative, or a series, or a clean obvious thematic unity (actually there are a few recurring themes that I think tie it together, but other than that—nada. *sigh* I would like to get it finished by the end of summer in order to concentrate on another project that’s been brewing and demanding my attention.
And of course, since I”ve been busy doing other things and hardly sending much out, who knows, all the poems may be crap. But there’s part of me that wants to hoard them in until I’m certain what their doing and how they fit into the bigger picture. Maybe it’s just a little post MFA stress syndrome..too many cooks in the kitchen and now I’m locking the door til I’m done…
