Re: Autumn Leaving (c&c)

[George J. Dance]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:01:30 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
> Let's give this poem an Explanatory Prelude:
>
> This is the oldest of my poems - I wrote it at 17 or 18, in response to a challenge from my college roommate,; he raved about it and called it the best thing I'd written; so I decided to keep it.
>
> Now it's almost 60 years later, and it's going into a book; so I'm reviewing it. I've done some editing, but very light touch - it's an 18-year-old's poem, and I'd like to keep it that way.
>
> I think it's solid enough to go in at this point, but I'd like to run it by the group and see if anyone spots any flaws in it that I don't.
>
> Autumn Leaving
>

Posting this, and reading it back, wonderfully concentrates the mind. I've made a few tweaks:


The world I knew
is falling asleep.
The beasts, and even bugs
are sleeping now.
The trees are turning
golden and bloody
in a celebration of life
before dying
and falling to rest, to rot
beneath a bone-coloured shroud.
The birds are gone now
searching for summer -
how lucky the birds, to fly away
and still be together.
I, too, have flown
but not far enough
for autumn has caught me
and holds me here inert
numbed and alone
in its soporific wind
with summer and home both so far away.

[ashwu...@gmail.com]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:49:53 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:

I do like it. Just a minor thing with this reader:

> > Autumn Leaving

> The trees are turning
> golden and bloody
> in a celebration of life
> before dying
> and falling to rest, to rot
> beneath a bone-coloured shroud.

That comes across as the trees dying, falling and rotting under the snow, when my mind is thinking leaves dying, falling and rotting under the snow.

[Will Dockery]

Looks good, George, and historic, as well.

[George J. Dance]

Yes, it should refer to the leaves. Exactly the type of missed detail I'm looking for, thanks.

[ashwu...@gmail.com]

Cool, finally I found something *feels accomplished*

[Zod]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 4:01:51 PM UTC-5, ashwu...@gmail.com wrote:

Good catch...

[Michael Pendragon]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:49:53 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
> On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:01:30 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
> > Let's give this poem an Explanatory Prelude:
> >
> > This is the oldest of my poems - I wrote it at 17 or 18, in response to a challenge from my college roommate,; he raved about it and called it the best thing I'd written; so I decided to keep it.

One problem with juvenilia is that it tends to be overly wordy, and this poem is no exception.

> > Now it's almost 60 years later, and it's going into a book; so I'm reviewing it. I've done some editing, but very light touch - it's an 18-year-old's poem, and I'd like to keep it that way.

In which case, the easiest route is to label it as juvenilia and leave it as it is.

> > I think it's solid enough to go in at this point, but I'd like to run it by the group and see if anyone spots any flaws in it that I don't.
> >
> > Autumn Leaving
> >
>
> Posting this, and reading it back, wonderfully concentrates the mind. I've made a few tweaks:
>
>
> The world I knew
> is falling asleep.

Either:

The world I knew
has fallen asleep.

or:

The world I know
is falling asleep.

Tenses need to correspond.

> The beasts, and even bugs
> are sleeping now.

"Even" is filler and should be eliminated.

The beasts and bugs
are sleeping now.

Hmm... it's starting to get problematic. "Now" is also needless filler and should be cut, but that doesn't leave much of a sentence:

The beasts and bugs
are sleeping.

"Sleeping" also repetitive, since the world you know/knew has fallen asleep in the opening two lines.

I would either replace this with a new sentence, or simply delete it.

> The [leaves] are turning

> golden and bloody
> in a celebration of life
> before dying
> and falling to rest, to rot
> beneath a bone-coloured shroud.

Credit for "leaves" goes to Ash.

This sentence is a bit convoluted -- the idea that the leaves are going out with a last "hurrah for life" before dying is a good one, but it could be better expressed.

"Bloody" feels off. The leaves are turning red/scarlet/crimson and gold in a celebration of life. "Bloody" is connected with death and decay and doesn't fit in with the celebration.

The leaves are turning
orange and gold
in a celebration of life --
then bleeding, dying
and falling to rest
beneath a bone-colored shroud.

I cut "rot" because "bleeding" and "bone-colored" are more than enough death imagery. "Bleeding" and "rot" are also a bit vulgar, and combined can overwhelm the poem.

> The birds are gone now
> searching for summer -
> how lucky the birds, to fly away
> and still be together.

"Now" is filler.

"How lucky the birds" rates an "Ugh!"

The final line is cloying and treacly.

I would cut the entire passage, except that line two is excellent.

Therefore:

The birds have gone off
searching for summer.

Or, more correctly:

The birds have gone off
in search of summer.

> I, too, have flown
> but not far enough
> for autumn has caught me
> and holds me here inert
> numbed and alone
> in its soporific wind
> with summer and home both so far away.

This passage is much too convoluted and could use some paring down:

I, too, would fly
but autumn has caught me
and holds me in its soporific world.

Here's the complete edit:

AUTUMN LEAVING

The world I know
is falling asleep.
The leaves are turning
orange and gold
in a celebration of life --
then bleeding , dying
and falling to rest
beneath a bone-colored shroud.
The birds have gone off
in search of summer.
I, too, would fly
but autumn has caught me
and holds me in its soporific world.

[Michael Pendragon]

SECOND EDIT:

AUTUMN LEAVING

The world I know
is falling asleep.
The leaves are turning
orange and gold
in a celebration of life --

then bleed, die
and fall to rest

[Edward Rochester Esq.]

Your edits always hit the mark...but I think they have eliminated a 17 year old's thoughts.

As with an old photograph, to enhance, erases the past.

I would like to see the progress of thought but never eliminate the original.

Perhaps a side by side evolution.

It's early, I'm just adding a thought.

[Michael Pendragon]

I wouldn't say that erased his thoughts; I merely trimmed off the verbiage.

The thoughts are the same, but the voice has become more self-assured in its ability to express them -- and, therefore, more mature.

> I would like to see the progress of thought but never eliminate the original.
>
> Perhaps a side by side evolution.
>
> It's early, I'm just adding a thought.

A side by side comparison (along with intermediate versions, if applicable) is always preferable.

I have Poe's collected works in both their original versions, and in their better known, finalized form (1850).

Michael Pendragon
“Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. What is the definition of real life stalking, if it isn't actually stalking?”
-- Will “Captain Obvious” Dockery

[Edward Rochester Esq.]

If no 'finalized' ever appeared, would you have enjoyed the original version as is, or would you have the urge to change it into your voice?

[Hieronymous Corey]

George doesn’t want to make the voice more self-assured and mature.
As he said, “it's an 18-year-old's poem, and I'd like to keep it that way.”

[Michael Pendragon]

It isn't as clear-cut as that.

In most cases, the changes are for the better. In other cases, they are not.

I would prefer to read them in their best possible version.

I don't wish to read them in my voice -- but in the author's best voice.

For example, when I compiled the poetry for "The Bible of Hell," I wanted to reprint FitzGerald's translation of the "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám." FitzGerald had published five different editions of the "Rubáiyát," and, rather than go with any one version, I edited together a sixth edition using what I considered to be the finest version of each quatrain (or, in some cases, line).

Twenty years later, I remain convinced that it is the finest edition of FitzGErald's "Rubáiyát" in existence. But it is still FitzGerald's voice -- not mine.

Michael Pendragon
“… giggling
at the gay guys
outside Sweet Gum Head bar
two green haired
punk rock boys
kissing…”
-- Will “I’m not a homophobe” Dockery

[Michael Pendragon]

Yes, I know.

Before commencing with my editing, I noted that the simplest solution was for him to label it as "juvenilia" and leave it as it is.

About 25 years ago (give or take), I attempted to revise my early work. Apart from a few minor corrections, it proved largely unsuccessful -- making changes to rhymed-metered verse often necessitates revising entire stanzas. About 10 years ago, I restored most to close approximations of their originally forms, slapped the "juvenilia" label on them, and left them stand on their own, flawed feet.

However, if I were able to improve them today, I would jump at the opportunity to do so.

Michael Pendragon
"Zod has been arrested, as the stalker trolls like to brag about discovering, but I wouldn't consider him to be a /criminal/ since he doesn't rob banks or anything."
-- Will “The Rationalist” Dockery

[Edward Rochester Esq.]

Thanks Michael....asked and answered.
J

[Hieronymous Corey]

Once upon a time before computers,
I used to write everything down on paper,
which is good because shredded paper
makes great mulch for our garden.

I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree,
nor worthy of its pulp in fiction.
My garden grows by my hoe’s friction.

[George J. Dance]

Well, you should be. One wrong line (what I started call a 'scratch', in the days when I played pool) can be fatal to a poem. And it's not just the fact that the leaves change color, not the whole tree. It's obvious to me that I had to have had 'leaves' in there in the beginning. I can tell by the title. I know when I use a word like 'leave' (or 'still') I'm using it so it has a double meaning. In this case, 'leaving' means the leaves doing what leaves do; but (as we find out in the end) it's also the speaker having left his home and family. It's not a big deal, but it reinforces the main theme in the poem the parallel the speaker's making(the 'conceit') between the world slowing or shutting down, and the similar shutdown of his own life.

But there's no reason to expect anyone to notice any of that, unless the poet draws their attention to it. Sure, when the reader sees the color change he'll think of the leaves; but he won't think the word "leaves", so he won't connect that part of the poem to the title.

I'm convinced that originally the poem explicitly mentioned 'leaves' (otherwise I can't see much point to that title), and that somewhere, in the 50 years since, I lost that part of it and didn't even notice.

[W.Dockery]

Yes, it would be interesting to view the evolution of this poem

How many drafts exist?

[Zod]

> George doesn’t want to make the voice more self-assured and mature.
> As he said, “it's an 18-year-old's poem, and I'd like to keep it that way.”

Good point...

[George J. Dance]

Not that many, really. There's one on the hard drive of every computer I've owned and still have, and there may be one in a pile of papers in one of my desk drawers. I couldn't tell you how many times I've worked on the thing, but I can remember just 3 - back when I wrote it, when I went through all my old poems about 10 years ago, and this week.

[W.Dockery]

I like the thought Corey mentioned, keeping the youthful view, reminded me of what I'm trying to keep in my "Early Poems" section of Shadowville Mythos.

[Zod]

Of interest...

[General Zod]

What happened to the EARLY POEMS book...?

[George J. Dance]

This new one fell out of it. I don't know if that will ever be done; Will still has hundreds of poems that he hasn't even put online yet. Repurposing the Shadowville blog sounds like a good way to approach that; he can post poems to it as he comes across them, and then make a book out of them every few years.

I certainly couldn't do the work for a collected poems unless I made it a full-time job. I was very glad when Will suggested we do a Selected Poems instead. That was achievable (even though it took almost two years to assemble the poems) and more fun than work.

[Will Dockery]

Yes, what I'm thinking is selected poems in volumes, Shadowville Mythos being the second volume.

[Zod]

Cool, cool...

[George J. Dance]

I've got to thank you for all the work you did on this. I'll do a line-by-line comparison, and word-by-word comparison in some cases, and make individual judgement calls. The only one I'm rejecting a priori is "The birds have gone off" (I can't read that without thinking the birds have exploded.)

[Zod]

Right on, and tghanks G.D.

[ashwu...@gmail.com]

I can see it from both sides. I thought Mr. Dance wanted it fixed up for presentation which would require best voice as Pendragon said. Unfortunately, going for that can take the original voice away, so to meet what is commonly considered best voice. Keeping it "juvenilia" would mean just correcting mistakes and no reworking, meaning it would remain rough.

Hopefully, Pendragon won't mind my additional commentary.

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 10:43:18 PM UTC-5, Michael Pendragon wrote:

> Either:
> The world I knew
> has fallen asleep.
> or:
> The world I know
> is falling asleep.
> Tenses need to correspond.

An easy one i missed, looks like a rap on the knuckles for me.

> > The beasts, and even bugs
> > are sleeping now.
> "Even" is filler and should be eliminated.

I wouldn't consider it filler, I would had done the same using "even" for emphasis to show the full extent of the sleep.

> > The [leaves] are turning
> > golden and bloody
> > in a celebration of life
> > before dying
> > and falling to rest, to rot
> > beneath a bone-coloured shroud.

> This sentence is a bit convoluted -- the idea that the leaves are going out with a last "hurrah for life" before dying is a good one, but it could be better expressed.
>
> "Bloody" feels off. The leaves are turning red/scarlet/crimson and gold in a celebration of life. "Bloody" is connected with death and decay and doesn't fit in with the celebration.

Bloody is definitely off, a color to match the gold would be best in my opinion. Plus to me bloody (wounding/fresh death) wouldn't work wit rot or bone (death/decay)

Mr. Rochester brought up an interesting point-- an evolution display. Can be done with traditional page formats as well as web page format.

Keeping concurrent multiple versions wouldn't be an issue here. While everyone went with printed and pdf formats, I went with hypertext. That means with a simple toggle I can have a poetry collection or single poem display any of the different versions of the poem may have.

[Will Dockery]

By collected you mean complete?

No, I see the complete works in perhaps five (maybe more) individual volumes... if I am lucky enough to live long enough to get that done, easily twenty years of work at my current pace.

:)

[George J. Dance]

By 'collected' I almost mean 'complete'. A 'collected poems' should contain every poem that the poet wishes to preserve and be remembered for. The idea of a 'complete' poems is more recent; it means 'everything, period (including the works the poet rejected from his 'collected poems'). So a 'complete' poems will come out only after the poet is dead, with a fixed body of work, and there are scholars devoting time to studying his work. OTOH, a 'collected poems' usually comes out in the poet's lifetime, and he makes the selection. The criterion is "Everything but the worst," as opposed to the criterion of a selected poems, which is "only the best".

[George J. Dance]

On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 4:36:18 AM UTC-5, ashwu...@gmail.com wrote:
> I can see it from both sides. I thought Mr. Dance wanted it fixed up for presentation which would require best voice as Pendragon said. Unfortunately, going for that can take the original voice away, so to meet what is commonly considered best voice. Keeping it "juvenilia" would mean just correcting mistakes and no reworking, meaning it would remain rough.
>
> Hopefully, Pendragon won't mind my additional commentary.

Once again, mr ash, you've performed a service by your being here. Pendragon's comment inspired a lot of thoughts, which I didn't want to write down in my reply to him because in context that would have read as argumentative, and going by past experience (not specifically between us, but my experience in general on aapc) would probably have generated more heat than light. This gives me an opportunity to write those thoughts down to a third party, which just might circumvent that problem.

> On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 10:43:18 PM UTC-5, Michael Pendragon wrote:

> > Either:
> > The world I knew
> > has fallen asleep.
> > or:
> > The world I know
> > is falling asleep.
> > Tenses need to correspond.
> An easy one i missed, looks like a rap on the knuckles for me.

Probably "I knew" or "I know" is superfluous; there's only one world the poet can be talking about, the world of his or her experience. That is some philosophy I'd never acquired, or even thought about, at 18.

But I'm now thinking that this whole first sentence (LL 1-2) is redundant. It's an editorial comment, a conclusion rather than an observation, which means if it belongs in a poem at all, it should be down towards the end.

> > > The beasts, and even bugs
> > > are sleeping now.
> > "Even" is filler and should be eliminated.
> I wouldn't consider it filler, I would had done the same using "even" for emphasis to show the full extent of the sleep.

Yes, 'even' had a reason; to emphasize how comprehensive this 'falling asleep' was; all the animals, from great to small, are sleeping. And 'now' had a reason, to emphasize that things have changed. But if that's what the lines mean: all creatures great and small are sleeping, and that's been a sudden change - that makes the first pair even more redundant, because that's all they're saying, and not as well. So I'm thinking the problem I've always had with this second pair - where to fit them - is best resolved by cutting the first pair and beginning with the second; just get them out of the way.

There's another reason I'd like to keep that second pair as is. You notice I keep talking about pairs; that's one way I've learned to format free verse poems. I find that works for introducing traditional meter, without the reader noticing it - I can write a line or lines in blank verse, and then simply break them all in two (which I call "broken IP"). This poem isn't in broken IP, but LL3-4 definitely is: "The beasts, and even bugs, / are sleeping now." It's a good, solid line, with a nice alliteration, and I don't want to mess up its sound by messing up the meter.

> > > The [leaves] are turning
> > > golden and bloody
> > > in a celebration of life
> > > before dying
> > > and falling to rest, to rot
> > > beneath a bone-coloured shroud.
> > This sentence is a bit convoluted -- the idea that the leaves are going out with a last "hurrah for life" before dying is a good one, but it could be better expressed.
> >
> > "Bloody" feels off. The leaves are turning red/scarlet/crimson and gold in a celebration of life. "Bloody" is connected with death and decay and doesn't fit in with the celebration.
> Bloody is definitely off, a color to match the gold would be best in my opinion. Plus to me bloody (wounding/fresh death) wouldn't work wit rot or bone (death/decay)

I disagree with your second point, since those are clearly happening in different times - the bloodiness is happening in the present, while the rotting and the bone will happen in the future.

I agree with your first point, which is also Pendragon's, that 'bloody' sounds completely out of place - the leaves changing colour is beautiful, and that one bloody word spoils the effect. It's not in the original poem (I had 'crimson'), and it came in only with this year's revision. (I got the idea of doing after reading a much better poem on a similar subject, Plath's "Letter in November", where she refers to morning light shining through the "rat's tail / pods on the laburnum".) The word contradicts the reader's expectations (something Plath loves to do), and that's what I decided to do here. Because it doesn't work (in terms of the image the speaker is expecting), it's incongruous, so it sets up a cognitive dissonance that the reader has to be resolve. The resolution is simple: the trees are not bloody, they just seem bloody to the speaker. that shifts the reader's focus from the subject (the external world) the speaker's thoughts about the subject (the internal world), and makes it as much about him as about it.

>
> Mr. Rochester brought up an interesting point-- an evolution display. Can be done with traditional page formats as well as web page format.

> Keeping concurrent multiple versions wouldn't be an issue here. While everyone went with printed and pdf formats, I went with hypertext. That means with a simple toggle I can have a poetry collection or single poem display any of the different versions of the poem may have.

Hmm.... I just finished talking to Will about a "complete poems" as being one step beyond a "collected poems". This idea leads to the next step beyond that: a "variourum edition" of the poems, meaning all the poems in all their different variations. Once again, that should be saved until a poet is dead. It's just not something a poet wants to do; for him, the poem is the version he's currently written, and he doesn't want people to read the older, inferior lines, that are no longer in it, or even to think about them.

It's like a reader of Poe's "To Helen", who gets blown away by the line "The glory that was Greece". It's interesting to know that Poe came up with that line only a decade or so after he'd first published it; but there's no reason for Poe to want the reader to know that; the poem's meant to read as if it were something that the speaker experienced as a unity, and be blown away by the completeness of that experience. If there's a thought for the poet it should be about how well he was able to capture and communicate it; and it doesn't serve him to tell the reader that it took him a few tries to get there.

[George J. Dance]

I just reread that post, and thought of a good analogy; a variorum edition of a poem is like a movie with all the outtakes included.

[Will Dockery]

Last year I bought Carl Sandburg's Complete Poems, a huge, nearly 900 page volume about the size of a cinder block, published in 1970, which was about three years after his death. An amazing collection and a testament to Sandburg's power as a poet, I've yet to read a bad poem in the set.

Of course, not every poet will fare so well...

[George J. Dance]

Not me, for sure; there are poems in my past that I'm embarrassed to even think about.

Anyway, I hope I made the distinction clear. A selected poems is 'only the best' and a collected poems is "everything but the worst." Your collected poems, I'm afraid, will happen only when you're dead or if you stop writing in your old age; while a series of selected poems sounds more achievable as welll as likely to result in higher-quality books; better in all respects.

[W.Dockery]

George J. Dance wrote:

> On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 1:41:08 PM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
>> On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 11:18:10 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
>> > On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 9:54:55 AM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
>> > > On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 4:30:53 PM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
>> > > > On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 8:35:53 PM UTC-5, genera...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > > > On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 1:18:03 PM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
>> > > > > > George J. Dance wrote:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > > On Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 1:48:04 PM UTC-5, Will Dockery wrote:
>> > > > > > >> George J. Dance wrote:
>> > > > > > >>
>> > > > > > >> > On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 7:02:36 PM UTC-5, ashwu...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > > > > >> >> On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 5:44:35 PM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:

That is what I'm thinking, also.

Shadowville Mythos is basically the Sunday Sampler poems collected, with a few early poems that missed inclusion in Selected Poems, with new poems written this year to tighten the narrative.

A "Complete" would be, as you say, something my children or grand children might come up with, many years from now.

:)

[Michael Pendragon]

Why are we discussing Will's upcoming "poetry" collection on George's thread?

[The above is, of course, a rhetorical question.]

Waffles, anyone?


Michael Pendragon
“Now it turns out that Waffle House is open until nine at night, which is a major change from the open all night schedule that was traditional.”
-- Will “Poppin’ Fresh” Dockery

[George J. Dance]

For my part: I was asked a question about that, and I replied to it. But it wasn't the only thing I was discussing. I wrote several replies on this and a couple of other threads this morning, but I'm not discussing those because no one has written back as yet.

[W.Dockery]

I'm thinking the best move is putting out the poetry blog, Shadowville Mythos, which is more of the fun work you mentioned.

[Zod]

It seemed a relevant point to discuss...

[Zod]

> Why are we xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hush up, troll... ha ha ha...

[Zod]

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 7:21:16 PM UTC-3, Will Dockery wrote:
> On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:49:53 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:

> > On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 11:01:30 AM UTC-5, George J. Dance wrote:
> > > Let's give this poem an Explanatory Prelude:
> > >
> > > This is the oldest of my poems - I wrote it at 17 or 18, in response to a challenge from my college roommate,; he raved about it and called it the best thing I'd written; so I decided to keep it.
> > >

> > > Now it's almost 60 years later, and it's going into a book; so I'm reviewing it. I've done some editing, but very light touch - it's an 18-year-old's poem, and I'd like to keep it that way.

> > >
> > > I think it's solid enough to go in at this point, but I'd like to run it by the group and see if anyone spots any flaws in it that I don't.
> > >
> > > Autumn Leaving
> > >
> >
> > Posting this, and reading it back, wonderfully concentrates the mind. I've made a few tweaks:
> >
> >
> > The world I knew
> > is falling asleep.

> > The beasts, and even bugs
> > are sleeping now.

> > The trees are turning
> > golden and bloody
> > in a celebration of life
> > before dying
> > and falling to rest, to rot
> > beneath a bone-coloured shroud.

> > The birds are gone now
> > searching for summer -
> > how lucky the birds, to fly away
> > and still be together.

> > I, too, have flown
> > but not far enough
> > for autumn has caught me
> > and holds me here inert
> > numbed and alone
> > in its soporific wind
> > with summer and home both so far away.

> Looks good, George, and historic, as well.

Quite so...

[General Zod]

Cool...

[Ash Wurthing]

This one will be one for a commentary examples thread since we have more than usual offering commentary. Good example of people getting along (as best can be had from this place) to work together.

[General-Zod]

Ash Wurthing wrote:
>
> This one will be one for a commentary examples thread since we have more than usual offering commentary. Good example of people getting along (as best can be had from this place) to work together.

Quite true...

AAPC Reader's choice, also...