Thursday, December 01, 2011

Revision and Rehearsal


I have a poem I'm struggling with. I like it, but I look at it, I read it. I know it's not done, but I don't know where to go next with it. I've marked the changes in red, they are small but I feel like the rhetoric isn't as solid as I want it to be. I don't want to be (*gasp*) the death of all poetry and be obvious, but I also want to bring the idea home, make the connection without telling what it is outright. (I hate it when poets do that). Below is my embarrassing recording of the first version.  I've decided I don't like the changes, and I need to sit with this and think about it more.



Unmarked Marker

It’s in fluffy, bunchy
dark brown curls.
In the company I keep
when I set my knife
and fork to four o’clock.

A furrowed brow
disbelieving,
because I can’t say
“The train hasn't come.”
in Spanish.

No one ever says
what they think of you
they just treat you that way.

There are just opinions.
Whether or not
I am enough.

Enough Black.
Enough White.
Enough Latina.

It takes others to be included.
What I know about myself
is what I’m not.

(revision #1)
Unmarked Marker

It’s in fluffy, bunchy
dark brown curls.
In the company I keep
when I set my knife
and fork to four o’clock.

A furrowed brow
disbelieving,
because I can’t say
“The train hasn't come.”
in Spanish.

No one ever says
what they think of you
they just treat you that way.

There are just opinions.
Whether or not
I am enough.

Enough Black.
Enough White.
Enough Latina.

It takes others to make definition
to be interpreted,
to be included.
What I know about myself
is what I’m not.