Sorting Through Old Poems

I recently had the fun experience of sorting through totes containing old writings. My husband questioned why I was saving them and I insisted that I always save my old writing – even the stuff I hate.

 

Well, it’s a very good thing that I save all my old writing, because in going through a HUGE binder full of poems, I finally found a poem I have been spending months looking for! This particular poem is for a book of poems I have been working on for years. I plan to submit this manuscript after I have 100 poems for it. This one particular poem is one I remembered writing because the evening that I wrote the poem, the person I wrote the poem about was in my dream! This poem definitely belongs in the book and there was no way I was going to submit the manuscript without it. Now that I have finally found the poem (at last!), I can add it to the manuscript and proceed writing the others for it.

 

There is another poem I wanted to include in another current poetry book. I actually woke up this morning with the thought of looking this manuscript over! (It’s been a while since I have worked on it.) This particular poetry book is a revision and rewrite of an old poetry book I wrote many years ago. When I was looking through all of my old writings, I found the file folder containing that manuscript. The new edition is not the same as the first one. The new one has some newer poems in it (I like to add new poems to old poetry books). So, I didn’t use all of the poems that were in the original manuscript. 

 

However, there was one poem I wanted to include in this book that had not been included before, and I knew this poem was in one of the MANY notebooks of poetry I had dug out of that tote. I just had to find it again! 

 

So I went to my bedroom this morning, to my writing desk, and I grabbed a bunch of them and carried them to the desk in the living room. I spent some time reading and rereading them in my quest to find that poem. After spending a long time sorting through them all, I did finally find the poem. Yay!  I added it to the new manuscript, and typed up some other poems for that book, and then I was DONE. The poetry book was complete. Woo-hoo! 

 

When I was typing that poem I had found, I at first thought that I wasn’t going to change ANY of it in the book. I wrote that poem when I was undergoing reconstructive surgery in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. I was a part of a creative arts group in that ward and someone in the group who read the poem really liked it a lot. Sadly, he later passed away. I wanted to keep the poem as close to the original as possible, because of my friend, but there was one line that had me stumped. Even after I read it twice, I mumbled, “What the heck does that even mean?!” So, for the sake of clarity, I fixed just that one line, but the rest of the poem is the same.

 

I also found an old poem I wrote about Grand Central Station. It wasn’t so bad! I just might submit it somewhere. I also found a few songs I wrote, along with a poem that had been published in my college newspaper that I forgot about!

 

There’s another old poem that I wrote which I thought was pretty good but … the formatting is a little different. I mean, the poem is literally all over the page. I don’t know how I would be able to type it the way it is formatted! Maybe I could scan it? I wonder if editors accept scanned submissions.

 

And, finally, not only did I end up with a mini poetry book as a result of the work I did on the completed book, but I also uncovered a poetry book I had written years ago that I forgot all about! Not sure yet if I will type it up and submit it.

 

So today has been all about the poetry. I have been reading lots of poetry this month, too. So far, it’s been a good National Poetry Month for me. This poetry book I just finished putting together just may be the second poetry manuscript I will submit this month!

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So I put together a writing "to do" list for this week on Monday and I've been keeping up on it so far. I feel guilty I'm only doing ONE task each day this week (instead of 2 or 3, like before!) but that's actually a GOOD THING because my tasks this week involve putting together, rewriting and revising material (books, articles and chapters). I work on them early in the day and spend the rest of the day mulling over the work. That's been a good thing so far because I get more thorough research done.

Yesterday is a perfect example: I did research on my book and I'm glad I had the extra time for that because I learned that a ritual NOT in the story SHOULD be in the story. (It's a Native American story.) I also went back to it later to make some changes. AND I finally figured out who to dedicate this story to! LOL I picked this person because something I once gave to him ended up being in the story -- with good reason! How cool is that?? :) So, that's cool. But NOW I'm thinking...maybe I should break this story into mini-chapters? I COULD see how the chapters would come about. It's kind of long (just a bit over 5,000 words), so I think if it was broken into mini-chapters, it would be better. Well, I'll bang THAT idea around and hopefully figure it out!

Meanwhile, I'm falling behind on answering non-writing-related email and making the phone calls I gotta make. And not really chatting online so much. Oh, yeah. My laundry is definitely piling up again. LOL But after I get out of this "revision zone" I am in this week, everything will once again be normal. And tidy!

So please forgive me if I take too long to reply to messages and emails....as well as comments on this blog. But THANK YOU for your patience and wonderful comments! You guys rock!