David Kirby wrote the following poem, "Ode to Myself as a Rough Draft," as a challenge from The Southeast Review. We supplied him with Kevin Rabas's five winning words from our AWP contest: "Throw Words at David Kirby and See if They Stick." [Read more about that contest in our blog.] The five words and phrases supplied to Kirby were: "sup knot," "Aussie hat," "jelly: grape," "'I don't know' or kangaroo," and "boomerang." Kevin Rabas teaches creative writing and literature at Emporia State University and is co-editor of Flint Hills Review. You can learn more about him at the Kansas Poet Index.
Ode to Myself as a Rough Draft
........ The key
to today’s New York Times crossword puzzle
is
a Miles Davis quote that turns out to be “When you hit
........ a wrong note, it is
the next note that makes it good
or bad” and not the only other Miles Davis quote I know,
........ which is "If somebody
told me I only had an hour to live,
........ I'd spend it choking
a white man,” which makes me think—
the first quote, that is, not the second—about the time
........ the librarian asks me
if I’d like to donate my papers
to the library and I say, There aren’t any, and he says,
........ I’m talking about
the poem drafts, mainly, the first drafts
........ as well as the second
and third and fourth ones you wrote
as you worked such and such a poem up into its publishable
........ state, and I say, Yeah,
that’s what I’m saying, there aren’t any,
and he says Oh, that’s too bad, because your colleague
........ So and So donated her
papers and got a $600,000
........ tax deduction and I
say, Hold on a sec, give me
a weekend or two and I think I can locate those things,
........ but the truth is I really
have destroyed my first drafts,
although “destroyed” is too bombastic a word:
........ it sounds as though
I took off my coat and loosened my tie
........ and turned my sleeves
back and took everything I’d been
saving for years in an ornate teakwood chest and made
........ a heap of them in the
garden and struck a match
and then hesitated for a moment before the destruction
........ of so much beauty, such
value, and then bent to the task
........ with grim determination,
touching the flame to a sheet
at the bottom of the pile and then standing back
........ as the fire roars upward,
smoothing my mustache
with the back of my hand as decades of careful work
........ turn black and then
ashy as they float off into
........the evening sky. But
that didn’t happen, because
I never thought once of preserving my infantile
........ scrawlings, my dirt-dauber
smears and scratches
that looked as though they’d been made by someone
........ who didn’t know
how to hold a pencil, my half-witted efforts
........ to gin up something
good, something semi-permanent,
which I did, but only after taking every word out and putting
another
........ in its place and then
removing that one and substituting
a third—writing “boomerang” and then “kangaroo”
........ and “Aussie hat,”
only to have “kangaroo” become
........ “I don’t
know” and send my stanzas in a wholly new
direction—until what I ended up with, what I abandoned,
........ really, bore no more
resemblance to the scraps
from which it sprang than a baby does to the monkeys
........ and salamanders and
jellyfish who either roamed the earth
........ or floated in its seas
in the days before they decided
to evolve so that they, too, could have flat-screen TVS
........ and internet pizza delivery.
True, there are a couple
of first drafts worth saving: in 1958, the pre-Beatles
........ Quarry Men (John, Paul,
and George along with Colin
....... Hanton on drums and
Duff Lowe playing honky-tonk piano)
recorded Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day”
as well as
........ an original composition
called “In Spite of All the Danger”
in Percy Phillips’ soi-disant recording studio,
a tiny airless room
........ where, since they couldn’t
afford to tape first and then transfer,
........ they went “straight
to vinyl” and produced what became
the Rarest Record in the World, a fragile shellac disc
........ that was passed around
Liverpool to anyone who asked
to take it home for a day or two and then disappeared until
1981,
........ when it was rediscovered
by Duff Lowe and bought
........ by Paul McCartney for
an undisclosed sum, because
it’s a lovely souvenir of more innocent days, yeah,
........ but also probably so
nobody could hear how crappy
they sounded back then! I like the idea of being wrong,
........ how being wrong can
lead you to something better,
........ whereas being right
might just lead you to something
that’s merely good. “Poison’s not bad,”
says Keith Richards;
........ “it’s a
matter of how much.” And I believe it was
the great Oscar Wilde who said, in his preface to The
Picture
........ of Dorian Gray,
in which case who else could it have been,
........ unless there are two
books by that title, which I somehow
seriously doubt, that when critics disagree, the artist is
in
........ accord with himself.
Only sometimes the critics are ourselves,
Oscar! For each of us is genius and stumblebum, each wizard
........ and pinhead like Oscar
Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle
........ Emmanuel Ambrose Diggs,
who combined the first letters
of his first two monikers and went by “Oz” instead
of the name
........ the other initials spelled.
When Toto reveals that it is he, Diggs,
who pulls the levers and twists the knobs to create his spectacle,
........ he shouts in the wizard’s
voice, “Pay no attention to that man
........ behind the curtain!,”
but by then it’s too late. And when
his balloon takes off before Dorothy is in the basket, she
shouts,
........ “Come back! Come
back!” and he says “I can’t come back—
I don’t know how it works!” But it does work:
........ well, for him, at least.
Poor Dorothy is left to figure things
........ out on her own, but
that may not be all bad, either.
Here’s Tennessee Williams, in his story “The Resemblance
Between
........ a Violin Case and a
Coffin”: “And it was about then,
about that time, that I began to find life unsatisfactory
........ as an explanation of
itself and was forced to adopt the method
........ of the artist of not
explaining but putting the blocks together
in some other way that seems more significant to him.
........ Which is a rather fancy
way of saying I started writing.”
And he, Tennessee, should know! Now as we move those blocks
........ around and put them
together in new combinations,
........ it might help if we
had one or more of the dozen “plot wheels”
that Erle Stanley Gardner used and I saw recently at
........ the Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center
on the University of Texas campus. Gardner cheerfully admitted
........ his Perry Mason novels
were formulaic and, eager to provide
........ his readership with
what they already knew they liked,
hand-lettered his cardboard wheels with every possible plot
permutation
........ under headings from
"Acts of Villainy as Story Base"
(such as “Villain Murders a Beautiful Woman and Tries
to Hide
........ the Body”) to
"Wheel of Solution" (“Meets Trickery With
Logic”)
........ as well as "Wheel
of Hostile Minor Characters Who Function
in Making Complications for Hero,"the choices here including
"Gossip,"
........ "Meddlesome Friend,"
and "Hick Detective."
My own start in the department of moving the blocks around
........ and making new connections
begins when I am six years old
........ and a first grader
at Sacred Heart Academy and decide
one day to rake my lima beans, which are mushy
........ and flavorless and not
at all like the one Miss Josie makes
at home, into a planter in the school cafeteria, in which
act
........ I am caught by Sister
Mary Agnes, who tells me
........ that wasting is not
a venial sin, such as pinching your baby
brother or talking back to Sister Mary Agnes, but a mortal
one,
........ like murder or blasphemy.
Let me get this straight,
I say to myself: I rake my lima beans into a planter and,
........ before I can go to confession
and be absolved, I am hit
........ by a speeding car on
my way home and wake to find myself
sitting on a rock in Hell, and Judas Iscariot is on the rock
........ next to mine, and he
puts out his cigarette and says,
“What are you in for, kid?” and I say, “Raking
my lima beans
........ into a planter in the
school cafeteria – you?”
........ Now it has taken me
until now to tell this story, because,
as Thomas Merton says, prayer is “a raid on the unspeakable,”
........ and is not poetry an
assault on the unspeakable as well,
and what is more unspeakable than one’s self? And I
mean that
........ in both sense of the
term, folks! Of course, after one has
........ spoken, then it’s
revise, revise, revise: you write “jelly:
grape” and then “sup knot” and say to yourself,
“What the hell’s
........ a sup knot?” and
think “supper” and “Last Supper”
and see the apostles’ hands criss-crossed in a knot
or “sup knot”
........ as they partake of the
“grapes,” though not in “jelly” form.
........ I say let the poet
be a rough draft, and let that draft
never be completed. And I say let the poem be many drafts,
........ and may even the final
draft be a rough one, even though
we give it another name or no name at all. Revision’s
fun:
........ in Paris, Monsieur Marcel
Vatelot the violin restorer
........ has grown too old to
do the delicate work required by his trade,
and so he has turned his business over to his son Etienne
but still comes
........ to the workshop on Rue
Portalis every day and sits in
his overstuffed chair saying, “I want to die gazing
at the restoration
........ of violins.” Also,
revision’s the only way to get the poem
........ to where it speaks
for someone other than yourself. So now
you’re wondering, “Dave, who is that other person
I’m speaking for?”
........ Well, reader, I’ll
tell you: you’re speaking for Pancho Villa.
That’s right, he who was born José Doroteo Arango
Arámbula
........ and rose from beginnings
that were humble, to say the least,
........ to became provisional
governor of the state of Chihuahua
as well one of the foremost leaders of the Mexican Revolution
........ (1911-1920) and who,
at the end of his life, was ambushed
and shot dead by rivals, but not before saying to his companion,
........ “Don’t let
it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
