CATFISH


Anyway, J. e-mailed me, since we both just happened
to watch Network. It's astonishing to me to see a film that
speaks of something the culture has only hastened
to become. Hard to talk about the movie without getting
up on a soapbox, so I won't. J. quoted the Beatles
in his e-mail though, and I'll print it here, because it's
always great to see in print something you have cherished
for years without somehow knowing why: "He's the all-American,
bullet-headed, Saxon mother's son..." All the children sing!

***

Zone 3 has taken two poems, and so the first big batch
to go out, the testing of the new poems, since late July,
seems to be working out. I say "seems." You never know.
Knock on wood and all that crap. But poems taken at
Barrow Street, Green Mountains Review, and Zone 3
in the last week. That's all right. Anyway, "Walking Catfish"
is one of the taken poems. No problem there. But "The Other
Water" I sent in my usual bluster of premature excitement
and now I have no idea which version I sent. It's a poem
I posted, became frustrated with (Charmi mentioned
that one draft had no music in it--she was right) and
took down. It marked my return to writing this "suite"
of poems after a small lay off. I have a couple drafts
somewhere. I'll just e-mail an electronic copy and see what
happens. If you revise a lot, and I do, this can happen.
I still think revision is a very good thing, but O how often
I send out, say, a second quick draft only to have it snapped up.
In the meantime I've written ten subsequent versions.
Well, so what? I know I sometimes over -write. And
quite often I come all the way back to the original poem, only
I've got a great couplet to add. Such a long way to go to
get such a little kernal of "rightness." But often all that revising
makes a piece of writing that is nowhere close to the original
but is in fact (to me) astonishing (in the sense McGuane said
it--when asked why he writes he said "I write to astound myself").
And so it goes. It's process, messy and often a pain in the ass.
Now I must thumb through coffee-stained drafts and do a little
busy work. It's sunny out, after a misty Halloween. On with
my running shoes. The stock market is taking a dive. Way up
on Wednesday, way down on Thursday. Speculate away.
Thanks to all the good wishes from folks on my birthday, by the
way. Okay. Time to go.