Revision has become my chosen creative enterprise lately.
I’ve crafted a few new poems, but as the pandemic has endured, by interest in writing about it or other fresh topics has waned. My attempts at writing protest work about the prevalent injustices are best left in draft; I’m at least smart enough to know I lack the agency or the life experience to write capably about some things. Thus, I’ve returned to old musical favorites – late 80s/early 90s Prince, British trip hop, Ray of Light, etc – and commenced rewriting old poems, drafts and ideas I had between 1996-2000.
I wrote mostly short fiction in those days. I completed two terrifically bad novellas and one collection of paranormal short stories in that time frame. (Published a couple of the stories in long forgotten journals. I think my contributors copies are in a box somewhere in my parents’ basement.) I wrote poems, or least their outlines, and often emailed them to myself in my old Hotmail account so I’d have them forever, if possible. Revisiting these texts has been revelatory. I had forgotten how heavily HIV/AIDS weighed upon me then, despite my often risky proclivities, and how going into public library work altered my understanding of the social contract, our social fabric and life in general.
Anyway, a few of these rewrites are beginning to take real shape, becoming the kinds of poems I wasn’t sure I could write ever/anymore. I don’t know if a new collection is taking shape, if these poems can join other bodies of work, or if I even want these shared with the world. I’ll see how my beta readers react and pivot from there.
I hope everyone is staying safe, behaving wisely, and engaging their creative self!
