Every once in a while I will pop one of my older projects down off the shelf while I am thinking about current or future ones--today it was that very first offspring, the fever almanac, one which I have had a tumultuous relationship from the moment it was publshed (or probably even since it was first put together in its earliest form.) There are so many bones in that book of later projects, of later obsessions. Especially in light of taurus taking shape even now.
Mostly with a few exceptions, these seem to have a certain over-wroughtness about them. I'm pretty sure one of my MFA profs called them "baroque" and it's true, I see it now even if I did not see it then. But they are also very rich and lush with language in a way I probably have not written since. There are good parts, good lines, and even a few good entire poems that I would feel really good about had I written them today. But a lot that seemed necessary at the time, but less so now. It's complicated by the fact that some readers really loved these poems, and I love them for it, but I find it hard to find the place from which I wrote them.
My feelings might also have a lot to do with when the book was published, how my work was changing even then--how my whole means of constructing a poem was changeing vastly over the years in which those poems were written. I started moving in new directions as early as late 2004, so the poems that later wound up as part of in the bird museum are more satisfying to me somehow when I read them now. I can look at the book entirely and with a few missteps think that I would write that poem exactly the same now.
And yet, of course, that book needed to happen. I remember back when I was so desperate to have a book, any book, so many poets talking about being "ready" to publish. In truth, you are only as ready as you are at the moment you put it together. You are only the poet that writes any given poem, any given book, in the moment and then most likely that poet has re-invented themself with subsequent books. the fever almanac is sort of a time capsule of my styles and obsessions from about 2000-2004, and also, even in its own pages, the shifts that were happening (noticeable greatly from the pieces in the first section and pieces in the last.)
My favorite pieces in the fever almanac are probably the more bare-bones ones-"sangria" and "night drive" and "predictions"--all written in 2004. But I am nostalgic about some of the poems nearer the beginning "after the flood" which always went over really well. "nebraska" of which numerous revisions exist between the journal publication through two chaps, and then here. I spent a lot of time obsessing over these poems, maybe in a way I never have since, trying to get them right. Trying to get the book manuscript right. Other books have been easier, but much less hands on , sort of like your first doted upon child and others that more or less raise themselves.
Also that shiftiness of self--the self I was who wrote this book was barely even the self who existed when it was published. Certainly not the self that opened the book up this morning over coffee. Perhaps moreso than children, books are monuments (in my head, I just said "graves" but that seems terribly glum) to the moment they were written in, to the person who was writing them,which is probably the lens through which all books can be viewed with.
(note: the title of this entry is a line taken from "sangria" ...the book is long out of print and the publisher no longer exists, but you can read a pdf version here..)
