Year of Poetry Update - Week 26 ( The Election Edition)

From Booktopia

As I type, counting hasn't begun, but I fear for my country and its most disadvantaged. If you came here looking for poetry about the election I'm afraid to disappoint.  

Mind you Omar Sakr has one here called Election Day.

What can one do but wait and write.  

So this week I did, write that is.  For some reason I felt as though I hadn't put in enough time at the desk, felt that I didn't have any cause for slacking off.  But as I look back over the stats I put a good 50 minutes more in on last weeks poetry writing efforts and only just came up shy of last weeks total hours.

So I certainly wasn't slacking.  

One thing I will have to watch is the determination to push myself and to expect good poetry of myself all the time.  There were two writing periods this week where I felt self imposed pressure to write well first time starting to hamper my creativity.

I discovered William E Stafford thanks to Richard Hugo. Check out the two stanza's below, I love the braille lines. I liked his work so much I went ahead and rewarded myself with an extra purchase of his book The Way It Is.

...

Some year I will ring the line

on a night at last the right one,

and with an eye tapered for braille

from the phone on the wall

I will see the tenant who waits—

the last one left at the place;

through the dark my braille eye

will lovingly touch his face.

...

The Writing

So nearly seven hours of writing produced three fully realized poems, two of which were submitted for publication, one of which was returned, rejected.

The front half of the writing week was an intense period of writing - intense in the sense of almost total absorption in the work.  This can be both a blessing and a curse,  poems get worked over but I can let it tire me.  I think this also contributed to a feeling of listlessness at the end of the week.



The Study

Nill study done this week.  I have ordered Mary Ruefle's,  Madness Rack and Honey though and expect that to turn up next week to give me some meaty essays to consider.





Close Reading


This week I read William E Stafford's A Farm on the Great Plain and began Richard Hugo's Back of Gino's Place .  


For the Statbadgers:


Total time: 11:40 (319:09) hrs


poem writing = 6.53 (138:46) hrs

close reading = 3:30(66:15) hrs

technique/theory 0:00(75:38) hrs

reflection = 0:53 (25:37) hrs



Poetry written:

3 (26) poems completed


13 poems in draft


1 poem abandoned


1 poem facing execution at dawn



Poems Submitted:


2(16 in total) poems



Poems Published:


0(8) poem



Live Performances:

0(2)



Rejections:



1(8) poems