Copyediting the New Book, Tearing Out (Long) Hair
I'm getting ready to walk the copyedited manuscript over to the post office, to Fed-X "Packing Light" back to the book designer. It took me longer than it should have to mark up the pages. I've been traveling and giving readings, yes, but that's not the rub. It's just hard to look at one's own work with a clear eye, and even harder to edit the early poems. Since this is a compendium of 40 years of poetry writing, some of the work comes from way back. The poems from "Devils Live so Near" and from "In the Great Night" were fierce and uncompromising, largely untroubled with matters of punctuation or capitalization. Now I read my younger poems and want to shape them lovingly. Don't want them to sound stuffy, though. I finally finished copy-editing last night, with a couple glasses of Sonoma County Three Ridge red. (The latter is highly--highly--recommended!)
My friend and great poet Alice Friman wants to see the younger poems just the way they were then, so that she can see the development. But as I read them, I am translating them into more graceful sounds--I can't help it. I want to polish them. The main thing, I know, is to make a decision and let it be--and not to have a mixed bag of different styles in any one period.
I have to remind myself how lucky I am, to have such a great publisher (Black Widow Press), and this open door for my work. So now I'm walking over the post office. And then I'll feel lighter on the way back to the office. And if I cry a little, that will lighten me even more!
Cheers and luck to you in your work! Marilyn
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Mary Wilkinson says:
sending it off!
I love the way you describe your work, how it has evolved. It is like watching one of my sons grow and develop and become a beautiful thing. Thank you, Mary Wilkinson
Marilyn Kallet says:
Your Voice Touches Me--Across the Ocean
Hi Mary,
Thanks so very much for your encouragement. Yours has to be one of the most beautiful lines of support I've ever heard! Your sons are lucky--
Keep us posted on your work. With international thanks, Marilyn
June Casagrande says:
So true
It really is hard to look at your own work with the same eye that might carefully scrutinize someone else's. I was only half-exaggerating the other day when I told a friend that I don't think I've EVER sent out a resume without a typo in it -- and most of the jobs were for copy editing and proofreading!
Congratulations on the book! It sounds wonderful!
Marilyn Kallet says:
You're very funny, and just as kind.
A million thanks, June, for your upbeat and sympathetic response. I called my daughter a couple of times yesterday while proofing--she's a professional copyeditor (working now on the Springfield Daily Register). Some editors just have that lightning eye-- the rest of us have to go a bit more slowly. And even then, as you say...
oy!
My daughter aches to have a cat (not allowed in her rental). But the cat at the newspaper is loving--it's named Typo! It has a little clipped ear (strays that have been spayed have that mark). So, even a typo can love you back!
Cheers to you and your work, and tuna for that adorable kitty of yours--Marilyn
Abdelwahab Hammoudi says:
The Old New or The New Old
Hi Marilyn
Some time ago I Listened to a song by a great singer and composer.Many years later he took the same song,enhanced it,added new instruments that did not existed before.The first and old version of the song was sweet and beautiful.The latter far much better.I bears the seal of maturity.The same might apply to your writing.Doesn't it?
Marilyn Kallet says:
From your mouth to God's ear!
Hi Hammoudi,
I hope that the seal of maturity is gleam and polish--and not rust!
Your message cheered up my day. Thank you and all good wishes for your work--Marilyn
Joe Phillips says:
As someone who read them
As someone who read them without the history of having written them, the ones I picked out for consideration for inclusion in the book I thought read both fresh and were enjoyable as they were. They capture a younger time in your life (we all have that period in our life) of youthful enthusiasm where we reach a fevered pitch of spontaneity, where feelings and visions of things pour out, our visions of ourselves and the future are not yet jaded and cynical (you term it 'fierce and uncompromising'). I think seeing the early poems is part of the fun of a collected/selected edition. Seeing progress, seeing mindset at different times, changes of style, concerns, subject matters. All of it adds up and contributes to the whole of understanding the poet/writer and where they came from. So changes should be light, if at all, at least in my view. We all try to second guess ourselves and edit our pasts (introspection with age) in writing it sometimes will take that 'edge'off that which dazzled us in the first place: even rough edges are often delightful to a reader looking in.
Looking forward to seeing what you have been up to the last coupe of weeks,
joe p.
Marilyn Kallet says:
You're an angel
And with Clayton Eshleman's poetry for company, how can my songs lose?
Bless you! Warmly, Marilyn