Seattle 167, or Revisions and Rosh Hashanah

My brilliant editor and I have been doing some back-and-forth over my rewrites. It's largely been great, because I knew my first draft was really rough (I mean, come on, what first draft isn't?) and I was excited to have her rip it apart - I mean, gently nudge me in the right direction, so my second draft would be cohesive, exciting, and brilliant.

Last week, I sent her the first 25 pages of my rewrite. I was so excited. There were new poems! Old poems had been completely deleted! Timelines had been altered! Characters had been fleshed out! I was positive that she was going to send me a letter of utter kvelling, before maybe offering to fly me to Massachusetts so we could spend some time discussing the brilliance of my work over cappuccino, and then maybe she'd introduce me to her agent, who'd immediately send it to every major publisher to get the bidding war going.

And that's totally what happened. You believe me, right?

Here's some of the 15-page critique (for 25 pages of poems):

...it doesn't seem that this is a major rewrite. My previous questions are still unanswered...try to think about major rewrites of poems. Often a finished poem barely resembles the first, second, fifth, twelfth draft. See if you can dig deeper...

Well, if that doesn't just pop my balloons, Editor.

In all honesty, I'm not actually mad or all that frustrated - she's absolutely right, after all. It's old, well-worn advice, advice I've given many many times.

And now we're on break for the High Holidays (Editor herself being a fabulous Jew), and I won't send her anything until after next week. I've promised myself that I'm going to let go of the book for a few days, go to synagogue, visit the Kibbutz for dinner, blast shofar, and pray.

But this critique rings true for me in so many ways; I can't just let go of it.

Every Rosh Hashanah, which, let's face it, is not as much a holiday as it is a litany of the Things We Should Be Doing Better, I review every way in which I might've hurt people in the previous year. The list is long, and usually incomplete. In the last few years, I've started writing letters to some people on the list asking for their forgiveness. It's exhausting, to spend that much time with my worst self - to sift through the ugliest parts of me, figuring out what I can salvage, and what I really, really need to try and get rid of this year.

Sound like anything else I've been working on?

I'm really going to try to let my novel go, and instead focus on myself, instead of my novel-as-metaphor-for-self. I'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, Shana Tovah, a Gut Yor, and may you all have sweet, contemplative New Years!

Seattle 166, or poem

Most of what I've been writing lately has been Raizl/Rachel, but I had the opportunity to go to a workshop led by one of my very favorite poets. She told us to write a poem in which you, the writer, the person, are in someone else's dream; in fact, the other person doesn't know it's a dream, because they cannot see you. Your job is to make them a very, very good dream by doing magical things.

As soon as we began to write, I began to cry. There are very few things in the world that have that effect on me, to be honest, but my grandparents - and, frankly, old people in general - seem to sit on my tear ducts more than most things. I can hear horrific stories about the evils of the world without letting it touch me too hard - but if I see an older person being mocked, ignored, or somehow stripped of any dignity, I turn into an angry bull. Hearing old people talk about being old often makes me cry, in a sweet way. Anyway, this poem is about an older woman. In her dream, I get to return her young body to her.

When you see

your sweet young feet

come out

from under the covers

like a pair of prairie dogs,

don't be afraid.

I promise,

you will not Medusa them back

into cicada husks.

I traded eight years

and my name

for this,

so,

these are your feet.

Your skin has returned

from Lizard Land,

your are your husband's

doe-eyed teacher again,

the one from which

he learned everything about love.

The bed will be too soft, now.

Rise in one motion,

gazelle yourself out the door.

The lake is there,

and a sparrow is calling you Grandma

and you don't know why.

You don't answer,

because the lake is made of goulash,

and you are hungry

for the first time

since you realized

you would never be perfect.

When you are full,

a choir of strangers

who call you Mom

will come with their

soup bowls and sing all the water

back into your flesh.

You will be so pink again,

baby-tongue pink.

There is no loneliness.

You trade your afternoon television

to an owl

for passage up a snowy mountain.

He leaves you at the top,

where a mariachi band

blesses you over and over

with roses.

You will hear his voice, then,

on another mountaintop,

and know,

from the first step,

that you can walk there.

Seattle 165, or Dive

Guess what? I'm writing a book! For real this time. Not that my first book wasn't real, but let's be honest: it was a collection of the Very Best Poems I Ever Wrote. Not exactly cohesive, unless you know me.

But this book? It's a Real Book. It's still poems, but it's a STORY. Told in POEMS. Not like an epic, but like a novel. I mean, I think it's pretty epic. But Joseph Campbell would vehemently disagree, so I'll stick to novel.

Anyway, some of you have seen some of the poems in this novel - I started writing it when I was doing 365/365 last year. They're the Raizl/Rachel poems, about the Polish woman who fights with the Resistance during the war, and then gets married to an American GI and basically discovers over the course of her life that a) the war never leaves, and b) it's okay to trust people again.

I decided to invest a lot in this book by hiring an editor - a writer I respect and admire (and has some 50+ books to her credit), who has quickly started identifying many bad writing habits I have. She's basically done the literary equivalent of painting my fingernails with hot sauce - every time I start to write a poem, she snaps in my head, "Oh, watch your first stanzas, will you?! They're always so expository, and you really don't need them."

But truthfully, I'm thrilled. After taking the manuscript as far as I thought I could go by myself, her commentary has invigorated me. I've already rewritten a quarter of the poems, and I can feel myself striding through them with more confidence, and a clearer sense of what I want to say. I've changed things I was afraid to change and I'm even on the verge of deleting a character and merging her with another one (eek!).

Basically, after a few months of post-tour lagging and blues, I've picked up again. I'm writing with a much greater sense of purpose, I'm inviting people over for dinner again, and I've stopped feeling (for now) like I completely suck at being a grownup. I even feel a bit like a real writer.

The only problem? This book has completely eaten my desire to slam and compete, and I'm registered for a major competition in October. I know it's important that I keep going to national slams - they are a vital, necessary way I connect with my community - but right now, my head is somewhere else. Poland. Westchester. Forhenwald DP Camp. Oberlangen POW Camp. And inside the heads of some fascinating, smart, bitter people.

I'm writing a book! It sneaks up on me every so often, like really good news. I'm writing a book!