This is the entirety of the “multi-stanza” sub-direction of the first direction for the “Mist from the Mountains” poem, thus far. (Not shown are the additional writings for the first direction’s “variations” sub-direction, the second “one-stanza” direction and the third “two-stanza” direction—all yet to be fully explored.)

This is how my poems usually develop—an explosion of lines that coalesce into verses that I write and rewrite, experimenting with different ways of expressing the theme. The result is the nebulous mass of words, lines, stanzas and notes you see above.¹

The three columns on page four each contain a version of the “multi-stanza” draft as it exists currently. They are essentially the same—extracted from pages one to three—but with sufficient differences in rhyming sets that they must now be considered separately. From these will emerge the final “multi-stanza” poem.

1. “Poet. Pedant.” explains how I end up with so colourful a body of text.

I am still developing the “multi-stanza” sub-direction of the three directions I envisage for the “Mist from the Mountains” sketch. Interestingly, as it has evolved, it has assimilated both the second and third directions and its own “variations” sub-direction (that is, to present individual stanza variations as a set under one title).

I would still like to investigate the “variations” sub-direction in addition to the second “one-stanza précis” direction (a quatrain summarising the “multi-stanza” version I am developing now), but it seems the third “two-stanza précis” direction is all but obsolete, absorbed into the “multi-stanza” sub-direction.

I attempt to clarify the convolutions of this evolution in the graphic above. The organic nature of the creative process makes for odd descriptions and naming with little regard for order or logic—wherefore the “direction” numbering is not sequential in the diagram: one, three, two—but I hope it illustrates what I am developing.