* This is the initial rewrite after the poem workshop. I wanted to repost so the class could see where I went from here.*
The first night I considered love,
you dropped me
on a ring of campfire stones
your jester's hat tripping
across the 2 A.M. October.
I might have known then
but I was too busy listening
to the sound of laughter - ours –
breaking the night.
Nimblewill Creek defused
the alcohol as easily as we shivered
away from boots, jackets, and apologies.
On an air mattress,
the makeshift bed of your truck,
we traced the bony shadows of trees.
Reticence stopped all conversation,
eventual and blurred.
We pressed our eyes shut
warmed by flannel cocoons
and woke, I fear, to the smell
of trout, bulging filmstrips of rainbow
frying away the afternoon.
*After reviewing all the notes and inventories from class, this is the second rewrite (so, the third draft) of my workshop poem. I'm still not sure what to title the draft, and the form is bugging me. Any suggestions?*
You dropped me on a ring
of campfire stones
the first night I considered love.
As your jester’s hat tripped
across the 2 A.M. October,
I might have known then
but I was too busy listening.
to the sound of laughter – ours –
breaking the night.
Nimblewill Creek defused
the stale beer and cranberry vodka
easily as we shivered
away our boots, jackets, and apologies.
On the air mattress,
a makeshift bed of your truck,
we traced the bony shadows of trees.
Ash and elm, maple and pine,
stopped all conversation.
Reticence, eventual, blurred,
pressed our eyes shut.
Warmed by flannel cocoons,
we woke to the smell of trout
bulging filmstrips of rainbow
frying away the afternoon.
I think the best move for this poem, after hearing you talk about it in class is to move away from the memory of the actual event. Remembering in Hugo’s The Triggering Town that he says, “you owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.” I think to steer away from some of the sentimentality of this piece and leave the triggering subject—which seems to be your memory of this particular trip—you should try to change some of the events or change the speaker’s attitude about the current events taking place. If the two people in the poem are in the midst of sexual encounter then why not address that a little more directly. The coy-ness of the draft makes the sex seem less real. The scene is a campsite which gives you numerous opportunities for the speaker to be concentrating or concerned with what is going on around her rather than focusing on the boy in front of her. Camping, to me, brings to mind sensory overload—there are different smells, sounds unknown, prowling creatures, discomforts (too cold, too hot, rocks under the sleeping bag, bugs, dirt), etc. Maybe try have the speaker focus on a howl or a rustle she hears coming from the trees or she wonders if she remembered to pack her contacts. This may not be the “right answer” for this draft, but I definitely think it would help you take it in a new direction and possibly make some discoveries that you were unaware of writing.
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