Clock - Poem #5 for April 2014 Poetry Project

LIVE!

Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!

Clocks

Photo by Amy LV

Students - I have decided to write non-rhyming poems on day 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 of this month's project.  Today you do hear chime/time, but this is mostly a free verse poem, something I wish to become stronger at writing.

Today's poem took thirty-three minutes to write, one of the shortest this month so far.  The spark that lit it was the idea of how frequently a clock face is looked at...until it stops working.  Then no one looks.  How strange that change must be for a clock.

My drafts for this poem are below, and I do realize that looking at these may be rather uninteresting.  They look the same each day: crossouts, arrows, lists of rhyming words, more crossouts.  But I promised to include them, and so include them I will.  (When I said it might be a bit repetitive to keep posting these, Mark, my husband, joked that I could put the same ones up each day and no one would likely notice!)

Clocks - Draft Page Spread #1

Photo by Amy LV

In these handwritten drafts, you see the word still in the last stanza instead of motionless, which appears in the typed version.  The reason for the change is that as I typed, I knew I had recently typed still.  And so I did - in "Baseball Glove" - yesterday.  I changed it as I do not like repeating the same words throughout a collection.  If it is supposed to be repeated, yes.  But if the repetition is not intentional and does not add anything to the collection, then out it goes.

Clocks - Draft Page Spread #2

Photo by Amy LV

One thing I always revise and edit are the words the/a/these/this.  It is often best not to include these words at all, but sometimes such little words are necessary.  It matters greatly to me which one I use when, and so often I go back and forth, forth and back until each choice sounds just right to my listening ear.

Last night I wrote in a coffee shop with Mark  (he was doing taxes).  Our daughter was at a movie in town, and so we listened to Tim Weir play his guitar and sing at Taste in East Aurora, NY as we worked.  Here are the sounds of busy coffee shop writing.

And now...it's giveaway time!

Through tomorrow - Sunday - you may still leave a comment and thereby enter my Post-It Note giveaway over at Sharing Our Notebooks.  Don't miss Mary's notebook poem celebration.

And today, I offer a giveaway of two books here: one copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR SCIENCE compiled by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong and one copy of my own FOREST HAS A SONG. Each Saturday of April, I will offer this same giveaway here, for eight books in all.  Thank you to Sylvia and Janet for your generosity.  Please leave a comment below, and I will draw two names next Thursday evening to be announced next Poetry Friday!

Please share a comment below if you wish.