Poemranker [Replying] Sun May 05 06:48:59 PDT 2024

Replying to a comment on:

WHAT KIND OF FOOL ARE YOU? (Free verse) by Joshua_Tree

How many fools have been found by love, Empty, desolate, and longing, Surrendered to their low estate Finding that for which they had dared not hope? How many have been made fools by love, Certain of their lives and dreams, Crushed upon the rocks of anguish, Stripped of all they thought to be? How many fools have forsaken love, Hardened lonely and bitter, Surrounded by walls of their own making, Protected from all but their own selfishness? How many fools have been revealed by love, Bold, brash or embittered, Squeezed until their heart pours forth, The secrets they had hoped to retain.

Joshua_Tree

3-Jul-05/1:01 PM

Dovina - ...it should all be 'A' material.

Me - We'd love to have our best work come out everytime we put pen to paper, but that is unfortunately not so.

zodiac - Nobody's said that. Probably everybody here knows... that they'll end up simply throwing away 99%...

We're probably like 3 blind people describing an elephant. We should be doing our best to write 'A' material. We don't always do as well as we'd like to do. Most of our efforts will end up in the can. That would be the trunk, leg and (umm) tail of the matter.

I threw out almost all of what I wrote in highschool, but I regreted it so much that I've kept everything since then. Editing what I've already written is how I prepare my mind to write more - like priming a pump. A small amount of it probably should be thrown away, but almost everything I write becomes pretty good eventually. By 'eventually' I mean 3 to 10 years. After that amount of time, I know how much I like spending time with the poem, which gives me some idea of how others might respond.

If I was writing full time then things would obviously go faster. The poems would mature much more quickly. I would have more in the "pipeline." I would probably also learn how to write directly into the computer rather than writing on paper and typing it in afterward. I think that I'll turn on "revision tracking" in Word and see how much it messes me up. I certainly write enough prose and essay-like material in worse text editors.

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