Poetry Friday: The Journey of Revising

So glad to see that Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference is providing all the poetry goodness this week.

I've been taking a poetry class through Georgia Heard's The Poet's Studio. It's a reminder if the importance in connecting with other poets during this crazy time period of history.

For the final assignment, we focused on the music and sounds with poetry.  Given the option to revise a poem, I chose Grandmother's Garden. I was surprised today to discover I actually wrote the original poem, almost ten years ago! 

we waited for moonrise
atop the roof
while the beets grew
lesser moons below
in the garden soil
we forgot to plow
stars flickered
as we tried remembering
constellations
and slugs harvested
garden greens
in the garden soil
we forgot to plow as
we waited for moonrise
atop the roof
​
Below are the pages from my notebook.  I decided to write the 2010 poem as a pantuom in 2016. So for class I looked at the sounds by color coding sounds and thinking about revisions such as moving it to present tense.

I've been thinking about the comments and feedback from class. One thing I have spent time with over the past few days is the purpose of this poem. For me, it's the dreamlike quality of waiting for the moon to rise in late summer.  It's a magical moment.  A comment was made about the word "pummel".  The idea of watermelon seeds flying through the sky makes me smile but I wondered if pummel was the best word for this dream like poem. So I changed the word, Same with the line, "Then Ursa Major growls, bares her teeth".  I love that image but I was it what I really wanted?  So I made a change in that line as well. 

In Grandmother’s Garden
by Jone Rush MacCulloch
 
We wait for moonrise
in grandmother’s garden
Below us, beets, the lesser moons grow
loamy soil between our toes

 in grandmother’s garden
we search for slinking nightcrawlers
loamy soil between our toes
watermelon seeds soar through the sky

 we search for slinking nightcrawlers
slugs harvest zucchini flowers
watermelon seeds soar through the sky
as stars in a celestial bowl

slugs harvest zucchini flowers
purple-blackberries ripen on vines
as stars in a celestial bowl
nectar bats hover low 
 
purple-blackberries ripen on vines
below us, beets, the lesser moons grow
nectar bats hover low
We wait for moonrise

Five Winners for a Copy of HOP TO IT
​edited by
Janet  Wong and Sylvia Vardell

CONGRATULATIONS TO 

Irene Latham
Michelle Kogan
Sara Lewis Holmes
Bridget Magee
Carol Labuzetta

Please HOP TO IT and email me at macrush53 @ yahoo dot com with your snail mail address so the books can be sent out mid-October.
Much thanks to Pomelo Books for providing copies.