453. Collecting Poems I Would Like to Send for Publication::: Starting with "The Can Collectors" and "Death of Anonymous Meaning"

Based on Blog 451, with the help of Barry Spacks and my new friend Bahareh, I was able to revise and blob together two poems into one. Please see PDF version here:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/deathofanonymousmeaning.pdf. I currently am not satisfied with the lines "Some endlife metamorphoses are pathetically metaphorical, yet starkingly true" but perhaps it serves as a good transition. It's too reflexive to me. I don't like writing about my writing. Is it a bit snobbish?!

Apparently, I accidentally made up a new word--a neologism--called "starkingly" for me, naturally from the word "stark" but usually the term "strikingly" is used. I felt like my best Chinese friend Talei for a moment. Upon learning English she accidentally invented new words--and I declared to our group that if Talei invented a new English word, then English must have desperately needed this word, for she is one who needs to fully express herself.

Barry acknowledged that I gave him two very strong poems, with very NOT STRONG endings--they were more "transitional lines" that beckoned more. He also discussed on how you can tell when people are "faking it" in their writing or "adding filler lines" in their writing (Ernest Hemingway saying), and it was amazing, Barry knows me so well he went straight to my filler lines even I MYSELF didn't even feel good about adding them, and he slashed 'em up, deemed one of them cliche (thanks, I thought so too!) the line "All my knowns foreign once again, can I catch-hold, renew once again?" Generates friction. For "Endlife Metamorphoses," the poem ended on transition lines "Nevertheless downright mentally incomprehensible," which beckoned more, but couldn't be a punchline ending. *Dope.* "We have to foster this poem to its fullest growth, potential. Read other poems for nourishment, more DNA material." / Death of Anonymous Meaning had a style transition, at first from solid poem to more song lyrics, too choppy, doesn't work. I agree.

Barry and Bahareh are "blessings" (hey, I don't like using religiously affiliated words) such that for me to transition from being in an experience, and then to take the barfings of an experience and translate it into thinking as a "poet" and only seeing this as a "poem for the sake of a poem," I would have to distance myself at least a few months, even a few years, to acquire a distanced perception of my byproducts. Barry declared, "I am a poet. First and foremost is the poem for the sake of poem," and right then and there, he could distance himself from me as a person going through an experience, and demonstrate his compassion through the form of a poem. As a result, I think Barry's essentially a psychologist as well.

The Can Collectors. Upon looking more closely, you might be able to detect a can of Coors Light tangled in a mat of ephemerally invasive species of kelp decorating a lobster trap of Mission Bay. Fishermen collect cans, literally and figuratively!
The Can Collectors. Black and white.

On one impulsive early Saturday afternoon, as I was trying to escape Santa Barbara, I had a strange experience, within a few minutes of time, in which I thought was so absurd, that I was able to document the experience and instantly emailed Barry my poem. He had an "elated" response through email. He recommended I removed two lines that severed the "proximity" of the poem. Maybe I have an ability to paint pictures and "summarize incomprehensibility" in the minimalist of ways. Lovely day. PDF is here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/thecancollectors.pdf.

I guess, what I would like to do is compile at least 12 poems (6 bare minimum) that I feel good about publishing, and then I'll send them off to contests and such. You can't force it. Otherwise, I'll just post them or link them to this blog for people's viewing, and as soon as I submit the poems, I'll take this blog down temporarily until I hear back. Lovely strategy, eh? YA!