Editing the Poems

19 August 2023 | Forgotten Fields

Poetry Progress List. Copyright 2023 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved. — How the progress list evolved over the years as poetic sketches were completed, added, discarded, titled and retitled.

I have officially begun the process of editing the anthology, bringing to an end the composition phase of the collection. A set of fifty-two lyric nature poems is the result, which I refer to as ‘idylls’, a paean to the Overberg (a rural region in the Western Cape province of South Africa), its creatures, flowers and landscapes.

The first poem (‘Autumn’) was written in 2012, followed by fifty-plus poetic sketches between 2017 and 2019, developed into complete works these past five years. Now, I have begun preparation for a rough draft print—a ‘chapbook’, as it is also known—refining each poem and assessing its rightness for the anthology.

‘A Clapper Lark’ Final Lines. Copyright 2023 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved. — Nearly all the poems presently exist as highlighted lines or stanzas in often chaotic developmental documents. This is a version of ‘A Clapper Lark’ (which, in all likelihood, will not appear in the collection), an example of the collating work still before me (and the naivety with which I wrote!).

During the composition phase, I kept every version of every stanza of every poem as it evolved from sketch to poem in lengthy documents with tens of variations per stanza. My task is now to extract the final stanzas and assemble them as individual poems onto individual pages, which I can then arrange and rearrange.

Once I have done this, I can create the above-mentioned rudimentary booklet. It is with this draft volume that I shall work thenceforth to determine which poems to include, the order in which they should appear and so forth. For so long have the stanzas existed only on the screen; at last, they take physical form!

1 March 20201 March 2020 | Forgotten Fields

Allow me to share with you the insanity of my pedantry. Fully aware of the fact that once published, the text will not be displayed as written in Evernote, I nonetheless take great pains to ensure that the paragraph lengths correspond. In this post, paragraphs one, three, four and six have the same line lengths, as do paragraphs two, five and seven. Imagine my disappointment when I could not also express the “To the next poem” part in three paragraphs!

This June

1 July 201821 April 2019 | Forgotten Fields

Paradise Crane in a Field, 8 June 2018. Copyright 2018 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved. — I photographed this paradise crane, the graceful national bird of my country (South Africa), in a field. They are also known as blue cranes, after their elegant pale-blue feathers.

My label released its first album.

The highlight of June was Origins, the inaugural release of the Lonely Swallow label: a collection of six contemporary classical impromptus for the piano composed, performed and recorded by Affan at his home in London. The pieces ebb and flow with delightful melodies and tempos that gently transport you along—now light and lively, now quiet and reassuring. (Of these, “Origin IV”, the fourth track on the album, is undoubtedly my favourite.) I am honoured to have worked with Affan on releasing his first album. I hope you enjoy the work of this very talented musician.

I drafted an essay.

The subject of Art fascinates me. A graphic designer by profession, my field of study was the Visual Arts; yet, notwithstanding the theory, my conception of Art has always been nebulous, nuanced and pliable. I consider it fortunate that my pursuit of music and poetry has since forced me to think more intelligibly about the nature and purpose of Art. As a result, my understanding has become more clear, and to elucidate this emerging view, I have drafted a simple essay in which I attempt to demystify the matter. When completed, I shall post it here.

I resumed work on my poetry.

In the meantime, I continue revising the poetic sketches for the collection of poems I want to self-publish. Some are completed, some await rewriting, and some have been discarded. At the present time, I am writing “The Pines”: two verses about the sound of the wind as it moves through the trees. Even as I think of this theme, I smile. Writing these poems is a deeply fulfilling occupation. They are little celebrations of Nature—short, simple and sincere outpourings of admiration and awe. I cannot wait to share them in time!

Mentioned in this post:

Origins (Bandcamp)