moving the words around,
choosing them carefully
to tell the true story
the way it always happened
The draft
for what has become The Old Lamppost was written forty years ago, it was one
stanza in a much longer poem. Last week I pulled it out and began to develop it. (I
save all my papers.) I worked many hours
and have several revisions, I thought about
putting them out somewhere so other poets
could see what went on to get the finished product. When I read other poets I think I'd like to
see their drafts to get an idea what they were doing when they worked things
out. .
I
was fortunate to hear David McCullough last year give a talk to a small group at the American Academy
in Rome, and he gave a good lesson when he said, "I'm not a writer, I am a
re-writer."
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