It somehow feels appropriate that the work I’m doing first off this summer is poetry.  My writing life really began with poetry, and that poetry found it’s first home here on Martha’s Vineyard.  “Martha’s Vineyard Magazine” was one of the first to publish my work, and for several years I belonged to a poetry writing group which was crucial to my growth as a poet and writer.  There were about 6 of us at various times – some “seasonal” residents like me, others year-rounders.  Of all of us, I was the least well-versed, so to speak.  Everyone else had been studying and writing poetry for years.  And they all had known each other, seemingly, forever.  But they welcomed me and my fledgling forays into poetry with patience, humour, and critical perseverance.  Although that group disbanded a few years ago, I remain indebted to them, and when I think of my summers here, I always think of those afternoons on my friend’s deck, sipping tea, arguing about syntax, and gazing over the pond.  Martha’s Vineyard is also where I did my first poetry readings.  Long before I was able to gather up the courage to read at an Open Mic in London, I was participating in readings here.  This is a safe and welcoming place full of artists, and in some ways, the “greener” you are, the more welcoming it feels.

After the craziness of my life in the theatre over the last few months, working on my poetry is proving to be the best way to get me to slow down.  Yesterday was the first day without guests since I’ve been here, and my plan was to start doing the final edits of the poetry manuscript I’ve been working on for the past year.  I have been very lucky to find Katy Evans-Bush and to have her edit my work, getting each poem to be the best it can be, and therefore getting the manuscript into the best possible shape before I start showing it around.  It’s made me think, too, about the difficulty I have editing my own poems.  Editing yourself is always hard, but for me, editing my own poetry is even harder.  Problems that I can easily see in others’ work, I just can’t see in my own — or rather, I can’t hear in my own.  The more times I read a poem, the more firmly its rhythm gets lodged in my ear.  And once it’s there, I can’t shift it without a strong external hand.  And I know that, whereas I find it helpful to read my prose out loud, reading poetry out loud only seems to set it more firmly in concrete.  So yesterday, I spent the day reading each poem to myself, sotto voce.  Only then could I imagine changes.  It was a rather surprising realization, after all this time. Like when you grow up with a specific version of a piece of music, it becomes for you the “correct” version.  Any change, any reinterpretation, seems almost physically uncomfortable.  At least it does to me.

Do other poets out there find this to be true? Does reading your work aloud only make it harder to edit? I’d love to know.
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thanks to artslink.wordpress.com for the great photo