Compiling a Book of Poems Post #2

Editing, editing, editing.  I've been editing poems for my book and going back over all my poems multiple times since my last post.  After I made a list of the poems I consider "Complete" I put them into categories to see what kind of material I had to work with.  From this exercise I determined that most of my "Completed" work had to do with the seasons or nature in some way.

This prompted me to look through all my work to see if I could find any other poems about nature or the seasons to bolster my book.  I added a number of unfinished poems to my list and brought my total to 63.  Of these poems, 30 are about nature or the seasons.  Most of these new poems need some editing or rewriting.  This is what I've been doing for the last week or more.

By the way, I'm by no means finished with this part of the process and am still determined to put a book together.  Now I'll be focusing on more poems with nature and the seasons as themes.  I'd like to have approximately 40 poems for this book.

In the process of editing and completing some of my poems, I've come up with some nice pieces and want to share some with you.

Autumn Gusts

Leaves dart across the ground

Like schoolboys chasing a ball

They flip and turn and spin

Like tumbling gymnasts.

Frantically, leaves fly

Like birds rising from a lake

Pushed by Autumn gusts

High into the air.

Color splashed branches dance feverishly

Like teens at a concert

Arms waving in the air

Moving in one rhythm.

I found myself practicing the use of metaphor and simile trying to get this one just right.  This next poem has a very different feel.  This rewrite about a heavy Spring snow is very different from my original, but I do like this version better.  

Spring Snow

Frozen crystals dance easily

Weightless

Swirling

In a dervish.

Thick, like fluff, they fall

Recklessly

Tossed

In a wind.

Landing, they join, cling in close

Layering

Combining

Like a mantle.

Heavy, pressing down, young limbs bend

Sagging

Droopy

Bowing down.

Brightened, the crystals sparkle in sunlight

Glimmering

Melting

Dripping down.

I started this post months ago and have sadly not worked on editing poems since that time.  Life derails me sometimes which is frustrating.  Many things are happening around here.  However, I have been inspired to write about the Sun and Moon today because of the "Great American Eclipse."  

Yes, the eclipse was almost complete for those of us in the greater Denver Metro area.  I'm going to be working on a few new pieces to add to my collection for this book.  I think they'll add something special.  

So, I'll leave this post for now on the editing theme and hope that you enjoy these two re writes.  I promise to have a few new pieces for you soon that highlight the celestial bodies involved in today's spectacle.  

Have a splendid day and keep writing!

Compiling a Book of Poems: Post #1

Almost since I started writing poems in 2010, I've wanted to put together a collection or book of my poems.  Of course, you have to have enough poems written to fill a book first.  It's taken me years, but I've got almost enough really good poems to create at least a collection.

Being a methodical person who doesn't enter into things like this lightly, I've begun to research the best way to put together a book of poems for publication, whether just for me or for sale.  Thus far, I've found some very good sources.  The links are at the bottom of this post.

One important question I think a poet must ask is whether you want to publish strictly for yourself or to sell to the public.  I believe this is important, because if you are merely putting a collection together for your own enjoyment, the guidelines are more lax.  You don't have to adhere to the conventions of publishing.


With that said, I've decided that my first endeavor will be strictly for myself because I would like to have more of my individual poems published before I try to make sales.  Furthermore, I will say that, even though I'm currently undertaking this task for my own enjoyment, I do not like reinventing the wheel.  I will, therefore, be attempting to put my collection/book together using the conventions that are expected for a published work.

Let's start at the beginning.  
Reviewing your poems is the first step.  All the sources I've read, see links below, have various strategies outlined for reviewing your work to determine what will go into your book.  Of all the varied suggestions, printing out all your poems is a good first step.  While many of us have our poems saved in an electronic document, there's nothing like pen and paper for editing, sorting and labeling.

So, I've printed all the poems I feel are ready to go into a book, or that I want to go into a book.  I have just over 70.

Editing:
This part is both hard and fun at the same time for me.  It's hard for me when the poem I need to edit is good as is, but I know it can be better.  In cases like this I will always preserve the original before editing a copy.  Sometimes, I end up with two poems when this happens.

Editing is fun for me because I like to look at something and try to make it better.  I recently took two of my formless poems and made them into palindromes or mirror poems.  These are poems that read the same forward and back.  When you read a mirror poem you get to the half-way point and the poem reads backwards to the first line.

Here's one that I just created by editing one of my poems:

Raindrop Patterns

October 12, 2010

By Kimberly L. McClune

Raindrop patterns

Random patterns

On the window

Pooling in the corners

Gathering on the sill

Small rivers creeping down my window

Gathering on the sill

Pooling in the corners

On the window

Random patterns

Raindrop patterns

To be honest, I'm still in the editing stage with my poems.  There are about 10 that I feel need to be gone over before I feel they're strong enough for publication or inclusion in a book or collection.  I may even try publishing a few of them individually before I finish this project.  

While I finish editing, you can take a look at the links below to read about putting together your own poetry book or collection.  These are the articles or sites I found to be the most helpful.

Next week I'll post on the next step, Sorting and Organizing Your Poems.  I'll also share another edited poem.

Enjoy the Spring for Summer is mere weeks away.

Leave me a comment so I know you were here.

Poets & Writers

https://www.pw.org/content/thinking_like_an_editor_how_to_order_your_poetry_manuscript_0

Long but thoughtful post. 

wikiHow

http://www.wikihow.com/Arrange-Your-Poems-for-a-Poetry-Collection

Writer’s Digest

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/assembling-and-submitting-a-poetry-collection

Inspiration

Well, I have nothing to lose by trying again to be published in another issue of Poetry Quarterly.  I submitted four poems, all older works, to them this morning.  This was inspired by having just written my first poem in at least two months.  Recently, my time has been spent in study for a new career, job hunting and raising my child so there has not been much time for writing, as I had hoped.

The inspiration for this new poem was not what most expect.  It was a very personal poem, kind of a healing work.  You see some poems are inspired by beauty and what you glean from the world around you, and some are from the depths of your soul and express deep emotion.  Take a sonnet from Shakespeare.  These works are doubtless the inspiration from the depths of a soul tortured in the fullness of love.  I say tortured because love can be a difficult emotion.

To continue on the topic of inspiration, when I write about a tree or sunset, there is less emotion and more appreciation for beauty in that work, that desire to put pen to paper and describe my view.  I love to paint pictures with words, to make a scene come alive from the written page.  What I have been learning in the last year or so is to bring emotion up from the page as well and this is harder because that emotion comes from deep within me.  I find that I do less editing on a poem that is filled with emotion.  The feelings must be real and they must be raw on the page.  They must not be altered to make them sound or appear a certain way, they must be the way they first come to me from deep within or they are not true.

Now, when you see the poem I wrote this morning you will find that it has a sort of rhythm.  This was not necessarily intentional.  This is the way that it came to me.  Honestly, it came to me as a song as I drove home from my daughters school before 8am.  I sang the first few lines to myself then came in the house and started to write.  The poem I will share here is exactly what came from me first thing this morning.

I cannot say that famous poets or more learned poets would take the same position about writing as I do.  I also do not profess to be particularly learned on poetry.  However, I can say that I am pleased with the results I achieve in my own writing.  Others, whose opinions I value, have given me honest, positive and constructive feedback on my work.  This gives me cause to believe that I have a talent for poetry beyond just my own pleasure.  Whether the world would agree or not is something that I am not concerned about.  If I took on the weight of pleasing everyone the joy of writing and the restorative peace I receive from the process would be lost and I would give it up completely.

So enough about the process and on to the work I produced in very little time this morning.  I will not reveal the reasoning behind this work as it is personal and not important to reading and culling your own enjoyment and thoughts from it.

World of Dreams

By Kimberly L. McClune

September 19, 2012

In my world of dreams

I would love you better,

Hope would come more easily

Faith would be more natural

Dreams would all come true.

In my world of dreams

You would always come to me

My arms would open wide

We would be so comfortable

Just to be.

In my world of dreams

I would know you love me

Just the way I am

No need for forgiveness

You would know I love you, too.

In my world of dreams

We’d have all we needed

No more need for fear

Worries all behind us

Together, just we two.

PUBLISHED AGAIN!!!

Well, two days after the first publication announcement I received my second publication announcement.  Poetry Quarterly has published a dual issue.  They combined their Winter and Summer issues in what they call their "Tricky" or "Sneaky" Issue.  My other two poems, Passionate and Under a Cloud Speckled Sky are both in this double issue.

http://poetryquarterly.com/?page_id=7
This link is where you can go to check out this issue and see my work.  The issue is only available for free for a short time, but can be purchased as well.  Of course I have a copy of both this and the previous Spring Issue.

I have shared these with my Writers Circle and received a nice response from all of them in congratulations for being published for the first time, even in an online journal.

Personally, I consider it a great honor and opportunity to be published alongside award winning poets and the other wonderful talents that I have read in both of these issues.  I strongly recommend any of the issues from this site to anyone who enjoys poetry.

Unfortunately, my job search, studying my online grant proposal writing course, watching my friends son and working a weekend job are keeping me from doing much writing this summer.  I miss putting my thoughts on paper, or in a Word document.  Every once in a while I will take out a sheet of paper where ever I am and jot down some phrases, but nothing complete has been written for a few months.

I consider myself in a time of living.  So much has been happening and there is so much to write about.  When things have percolated long enough and are ready, the writing will come.  That's kind of how poetry is for me.  When the thoughts/words are there, I write them down.  I find that if I try too hard to find the words for a poem in the first writing, then the poem will never come together for me.  I can go back and re work a poem to get it just right, but it has to be congealed at its first writing.

Enough about my writing style for now.  Suffice it to say that I am extremely proud and excited to be published.  If this year ends and I am still unemployed, I will at least end the year having reached a goal outstanding since childhood, to be published.

Good evening and good writing.

PUBLISHED!!!

Well, the time has come at last.  I'm published!

After submitting a few poems to Poetry Quarterly over a year or so, they chose four of my poems to include in their publications this year.  Two of them are in their Spring Issue.  Check it out on their site.

http://poetryquarterly.com/?page_id=7

My two are together on pages 17 & 18.  Smoke and High Rise Thunder.

This has been such a tumultuous year for me that the news of this and then seeing them in the publication brought me to happy tears.  What a joy to see this culmination of my loving work to knit together words into meaningful, thought provoking phrases that would be read by more than just my friends and family.

Today, for me, a dream has truly come to be.  Right now I feel that if I never had another piece published, I have at least touched some lives with my words.  However, I know that in a few days I will be inspired to submit more material to Poetry Quarterly, and even to other publications.

So I invite you to go to the site for this wonderful digest of poetry and enjoy any of their issues that are still available for free or subscribe to them or purchase any issues.  This is a favorite place for me to go to read current poets.

Hope I can sleep tonight!!!
Big Smiles at my house tonight!!