While writing the last entry on the revision process, I was reminded of a poem I wrote in undergrad. It is a mediocre poem, however at the time, tainted with undergraduate brio, I thought it was brilliant, and I thought I was on my way to becoming the next Rilke, Neruda, Ferlinghetti. The one aspect of the poem that retained a good idea was the fact that I kept every revision of it, including the original long-hand version, and every cross-off and each line that I X'ed out with my typewriter. (Yes, I used a typewriter in undergrad. I'm not dating myself; I'm just indicting my inability to embrace technology in a timely manner.)
I have included all those versions below as a means to show how, even in a mediocre poem, a piece evolves over many version. The last version of the poem, I revised in the process of this entry, almost fifteen years since the last revision.
All testimony to the fact that a piece of writing will never fully be completed by its author. We just choose to stop working on it:
Sunflower (version 1)
a sunflower painted with meticulous strokes on a coffee cup (evoking memories of Ginsburg and of Blake and and of Blake and Kerouac from him) memories of running through a field blowing with pursed lips from the depths of my lungs the spokes and feathers and petals and leaves off each and every dandelion geranium pussy-willow &%$@*-willow sunflower that crosses my path into the air decapitating the flowering with each swipe of my arms
Sunflower (version 2)
A sunflower Painted with delicate meticulous strokes on a hand-crafted ceramic cup evoking memories of Ginsburg (and of Blake and Kerouac from him) evoking memories of childhood of running carelessly through an open field blowing with pursed lips with breathes mustered from the depths of my lungs pulmonary sacks filling like a blowfish like Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks the spokes and feathers and and petals and leaves off each and every dandelion geranium brambleweed sunflower that crosses my wayward path into the stanch fragile air blowing with unmitigated ferocity each leaf from its burgeoning stem decapitating the poor harmless vegetation with each pendulous swipe of my arms mouth sustained in an oblate grin laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and running aimlessly after each dandelion puff floating pathlessly in the air each sunflower running and laughing the whole way through my golden field my harbinger of spright sits atop my paper-strewn desk sturdy base slowly seeping its imprint into the grain
Sunflower (version 3)
A sunflower painted with meticulous strokes evoking memories of Ginsburg (and of Blake and Kerouac from him) of childhood running through an open field blowing with pursed lips from the depths of my lungs the spokes and feathers and petals and leaves off each and every dandelion geranium pussy-willow sunflower that crosses my path decapitating them flowering with each swipe of my arms mouth in an orbicular roundish grin laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and running after each dandelion puff floating in the air each sunflower running and laughing the whole way through my golden field sits atop my paper-strewn desk seeping its imprint Into the grain
Sunflower (version 4)
a sunflower painted with meticulous strokes on a coffee cup evoking memories (of Ginsberg and of Blake and Kerouac from him) of childhood of running through an open field blowing with pursed lips from the depths of my lungs the spokes and feathers and petals and leaves off each and every dandeliongeraniumpussy-willowsunflower that crosses my path decapitating them with each swipe of my arms mouth in a roundish grin laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and running after each dandelion puff Each sunflower running and laughing the whole way through my golden field sits atop my paper-strewn desk seeping its imprint imprint into the grain.
Sunflower (version 5)
a sunflower painted with meticulous strokes on a coffee cup evoking memories (of Ginsberg and of Blake and Kerouac from him) of childhood of running through an open field blowing with pursed lips from the depths of my lungs the spokes and feathers and petals and leaves off each and every dandeliongeraniumpussy-willowsunflower that crosses my path decapitating them with each swipe of my arms mouth in a roundish grin laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and running after each dandelion puff floating in the air each sunflower running and laughing the whole way through my golden field sits atop my paper-strewn desk seeping its imprint into the grain.
Sunflower (Version 6 – edited in the process of this entry)
a sunflower painted with meticulous strokes on a coffee cup evoking memories (of Ginsberg and of Blake and Kerouac from him) of running through an open field blowing the spokes and feathers and petals and leaves off each and every dandeliongeraniumpussy-willowsunflower that crosses my path each swipe of my arms mouth in a roundish grin laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and running after each dandelion puff floating in the air through my golden field sits atop my paper-strewn desk seeping its imprint into the grain.
Darren Cormier lives in the Boston area. He is the author of A Little Soul: 140 Twitterstories. His fiction has appeared in Opium Magazine, Meetinghouse, Amoskeag, Every Day Fiction, Raft Magazine, Arch Literary Journal, and One Forty Fiction, Ether Books, and Seedpod Publishing. Writing peeves: there should be a comma before the "and" in a set of three or more items; it is "A historic" not "AN historic"--the 'h' is pronounced; would've, could've, and should've are contractions and should never be written as "would of," "could of," or "should of"; and "ATM machine" is redundant. He also invented the giraffe.
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