week 5 chap 14 exercise:rewriting
Revoking Refusal
Untrusting, I
sensed your faceless presence near and knew
you were behind me.
Hesitating and gently
I leaned back,
waiting.
You were surprising
and soft, accepting my weight against you, tempting me to revoke my refusal.
I let myself go.
The curves
of your body and mine
conformed
perfectly.
Abandoning
myself finally and resolutely, the flush of white heat emanated from your skin
and enveloped me.
Following is the first draft
I Refused You
I did not trust,
when I felt
you behind me
but gently
I leaned back,
waiting.
I felt you
soft
and tempting
and I let
myself
go.
The curves
of your
body
and mine
conforming
perfectly.
Abandoning myself,
the flush of
white heat
emanating from
your skin
enveloped me.
LR
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI think that chapter on discursive writing is already showing in the shape and flow of your lines. In earlier work you showed a strong ability to capture images in swift, short lines. Here, the poem finds a natural shape, one that mirrors imagery and theme. Now, I do question some of the line breaks--the really long line that ends with "my" is one example and somehow the ending feels lacking, in part because of the other long line above it.
This poem has also moved in the right direction, away from dreamy abstraction and into a sensory (and sensual) realm. Parts of the remaining abstractions still leave me wondering, such as how the speaker senses the "faceless presence" and what it is about this presence that makes the speaker "untrusting" and "hesitating." Of course, how to do this is the hard question.
What's here is both strong and compelling as a revision. Well done.
Hello Tom, Thank you very much for your comments, very useful! I will have to think about the first line. It is one that left me unsatisfied too... but it comes from a dream, so how to project that 'knowing' or 'fearing' being wary, etc. that you get in a dream is elusive, the dream is elusive (maybe because dreams are our unresolved feelings-I think...) so I need to dig there. The line break was a total mistake! The poem got realigned because of the narrow layout of the page, in fact I had to go over all of my posts and change lines for layout. I hope I caught it in my other posts. Is it possible to change the size of the area we post in?? Looking forward to your future input.
DeleteI think you did a really great job on this poem overall. The way you grouped the words and lines together created a nice flow throughout the whole poem. I think this poem also captured a beautiful scene, and it made me wish there was even more to the poem. This poem was sweet and simple, and I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your first draft, I think you made great improvements on your final draft.
Hello Jordyn, Thank you for your comment. The dream ended like that-so I stopped it there for lack of inspiration but I think you are right and that it could have more of a conclusion. I will think about how to develop, some feeling or frustration or wish that the dream left...
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