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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

30 November -0001

Edit - The Way of the Biro




I'm doing a lot of editing at present. Some days I'm more in the poem than the day. Not in a Romantic Poet type way, more in a ‘not really paying attention to crossing the road’ type way. I can spend a morning on a semi-colon, an afternoon on a simile, ‘is it more like a bucket or a spider?’


Sometimes I wonder if I’ve edited through two or three passable poems before reaching a place of being happy with the poem I have. Sometimes I wonder if the better poem was four edits earlier. If I'd listened closer I might have heard the scream of brakes. With that in mind here are two snapshots of a current work-in-progress:



Everything Must Go


Accept this. Then what

remains in your home?

Vertical you. The internal

scaffolding of your walls.

A For Sale sign that stands

you up in a cul-de-sac.

Go. You can't leave every-

-one and hold onto the only

place that keeps you

spinning in the world. You

want to go-hide/ go-seek? Don't

you find sleep comes with one

arm hanging over the bed's edge

so your hand stops the floor?


*


Everything Must Go


Accept this. Then what

remains is your word.

Verisimilitude. The internal

scaffolding of your nerve.

Let go. You can't edit every

line and hold onto the sweet

lie that keeps you spinning

in the world. You won't find sleep

with one hand hanging from the edge

and the other holding onto a pen.





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