Nobody asks

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been getting some feedback on my writing from friends and my mentor, who is the brilliant Maggie Sullivan.  I promised to share with you some writing, and I am going to do that now - some before and after stuff – so you can see where and how changes have been made and maybe give me your thoughts on them?

As you will know from previous posts, I am completely new to poetry – even reading it, so it is no surprise at all that a large part of my feedback has been about structure.  In writing and rewriting, I am ok with words, subjects, trying to pin down whatever it is I have decided to try and say.  When it comes to how it’s flows – where you punctuate, why you start a new paragraph, how many lines to use – I have no idea.  Along with not having enough experience of reading it, I don’t think it’s something I am good at intuiting.  So I need to work on that.

Another piece of useful feedback from Maggie was about not over-explaining things.  I think that’s good advice in general.  It was interesting as I’d just got back from Birdman and been reminded of the brilliance of Raymond Carver and in my inbox was an e-mail referring to his writing style – ‘get in, get out, don’t linger’.  That’s definitely something to work on.

This first poem will be familiar to my postal correspondents.  It’s the very first thing I wrote for the class and seemed to get a lot of positive response.  It was based on a story that I was by a friend steadfastly ignoring some attention seeking behaviour from a colleague – I’ve since spoke to who I thought told me that and it turns out they didn’t.  Most odd.  Anyway, I am going to post my version and then the edited version.

If they ask

If they ask, I’ll tell them it was my mothers

“She died recently, I like having her things around me”

Or maybe I’ll say ‘its nobody else’s business” and run

And they’ll follow and I can show them where it hurts

If they ask, I’ll say “wouldn’t you like to know?”

And I’ll wink, and we’ll laugh and go to lunch

Or maybe I’ll tell them about my brother

On remand now and the charges are mounting

All I’ve got left and I don’t want him

I sit and I wait, ready at last

But nothing has changed

Nobody asks

If they ask

I'll tell them it was my mothers

"She died recently, I like having her things around me"

Or, maybe "it's nobody else's business" and run

They'll follow and I can show them where it hurts.

If they ask, say "wouldn't you like to know?"

and wink, We'll laugh and go to lunch.

Or maybe I'll tell them about my brother

on remand now, charges mounting

All I've got left and I don't want him.

I sit, wait, ready at last.

Nobody asks.

The things I like about the editing of this one: it’s much more efficient (the removal of the I’lls and conjunction, plus there’s no longer the repetition at the beginning) and I think the space works – the ‘nothing has changed’ being implied.  The gap feels more like a beat, or a breath.

There are suggested edits to others, too, but I am conscious that this has become quite a long post already.  What do you think?  Which one do you prefer (if any)?

I’ll write another post about the other poem I’ve sent out to people – the night journey.  It was a bit of a mess, but I really liked some bits of it.  The suggested changes to that one are more drastic, which is necessary, though I am still mulling them over!  I start a new class tonight, so hopefully that will give me some more inspiration!