the truncated version

[fflo]

Didja ever hear tell that at one point Marianne Moore, in her varyingly-long versions of "Poetry," thought maybe it should stop after not just the first 4 lines, but only the first part of the first line---

  I, too, dislike it.

?  I think I heard that some time. Anyway the idea's been coming back to me recently, as the title I've had in my head has had more than one poem (or beginning of poem, anyway) attached to it in these past coupla weeks, but all that's sticking is the first line. Should it stop there, I ask myself (and now the poetry people among ya), or could the struggle to flesh it out be worthwhile? It's such an aesthetic minefield, its milieu all heavy/Big. (I like to think I could keep it from the maudlin/mawkish, trite, general/Big, but I might be kidding myself about that.) Here 'tis:


    Valediction, Overdue

  Finally, it's just a town


("Scrap the whole thing" is certainly also a suggestion I'd not be offended by.)

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

ah yes--- and then there are the lines that are great lines but don't ultimately belong in the poem at hand: always a heartbreaker

i appreciate your thoughts here. heck, maybe part of the problem is that there's so MUCH imagery/content hovering... i'm sure you know how that is!

distillation for later reading back into bigness--- it's kinda like making those condensed "add water" capsules that pop up into a dinosaur sponge or a lunar rover washcloth.

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but those great lines can lead you--maybe into a poem that is much different than the poem you started to write. Frankly, I think it's a decision you should make for yourself. If you feel it's done, then it's done. If you don't, then keep working on it. Maybe that approach is too simple, but hell, why overcomplicate it?