Sunday, October 24, 2010

Draft Revision Post I

There’s a photograph I keep, little known illusion of what was. Remembering that chimera of my family standing together like the paper dolls I used to cut out of stationary paper, bits of our address still peeking out from their feet. The photo fades each time I hold it. I never liked how we smiled anyway. It was my birthday then. You could see the towered cake in the back and Spike the Boston Terrier trying to escape from my sister’s grasp. My mother was never photogenic, her eyes always droop at the sight of a camera. Looking back at how my father could never look at us straight in the eye, his back always turned from us. He left soon after this picture was taken. We knew his back was always turned at us, at our mother. I still keep the picture and remember how to never have my back turned, nor my eyes averted from my reflection.

Note: This is an initial piece I wrote a while back that I would like to work on first. It seems to need some tweaking, but as far as critique goes I was wondering how to keep the more candid use of the language, but try to expand on the images of the draft. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

3 comments:

  1. Randie,

    Just a few thoughts in response to your note:

    "chimera of my family standing together" You might craft a bit more of an edge in these words with some simple revision. In the time it takes to read/say "of my family standing together" the image starts to deflate, I think. You might try something a little more compact like, "that 4x6 familial chimera" Obviously I'm just tooling around, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.

    Again, the biggest things that would help this draft in terms of imagery would be specificity. What does this stationary paper look like, what colour is it? What does it smell like.

    The cake, a seemingly important point of familial gathering....What kind of cake is it/colors, texture etc.

    A little nit-picky business. You say that the photograph fades each time your speaker holds it. It's my understanding that light exposure, or the lack of it causes photographs to fade. How else might your speakers attachment to this photo cause it to warp? Do the edges curl and yellow? are there creases in the picture? Where?

    Obviously you allude to some seemingly traumatic event in your speaker's past, but do a good job, I think, of not overstating this.

    I'm curious though, why do you have the draft formatted in this way? Is it just that it's early in the draft, or are you experimenting with something? I look forward to what you come up with. Let me know how else I can help.

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  2. Randie,
    Like Billy, I also think that the draft could benefit most from specificity. You have some interesting places where you do introduce an amazing attention to detail (like when you describe the stationary paper dolls with "bits of our address still peeking out from their feet") but, for the most part, you stick strongly to the candid language you want to privilege. And not that I blame you, you are creating a draft around a traumatic event in your speaker's past, the abandonment of the father, and, were I you, I'd want to keep the candid as well. But I also think that an emphasis on the detail and imagery you could use, the more poetic language you could infuse here, would only make the straight-forward language stand out and weigh even more within the context of the draft. Just some possible questions you could address to flesh out some more imagery: Why did the speaker not like their smiles? What did the smiles look like? Is it the speaker IN the picture or the speaker looking at the picture that doesn't like the smiles? How are the two portrayals of the speaker, the one in the picture and the one speaking in the poem, the same? Different? Does she look the same/different? Why does the speaker keep the picture? How does the idea of reflection work in here? The speaker is focused on looking at a picture...the reflection/mirror is unexpected or not introduced until the end? How could this idea of reflection be introduced earlier? Could the speaker see her reflection in the glass of the frame? Or does the picture even merit a frame? Who took the picture? A family member, a friend, could it be interesting if the father was the one to take the picture? If even in being there, he is already absent? Is the idea of him turning his back on his family too overused/cliched? What did the father leaving look like? Was it in the middle of the night while everyone slept? Did he say goodbye? Was there a fight? While the tendency would be to stay away from the memories outside of the photo to stay away from sensationalism, could it be interesting to have the picture take the speaker back to the night the dad left and have the episode described in the same flat and candid language prevalent in the draft? You could follow the descriptive-meditative mode we discussed last class. The picture is described, this forces the speaker into a meditative remembrance of the father leaving, but we end back in the physical world with the photo here and the father gone.

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  3. One thing you might do to expand on the imagery of the draft is tell the reader more about what is in the photograph. What is in the background? The lamp that got broken by the cat or something. Whatever you want it to be. What is everyone doing in the photo? Are there presents around?

    You could describe the characters more. What about the sister? Is she older, younger, jealous that it is not her day, and so has a sour look on her face? Why is the mother not photogenic? Does she not wear make-up or take a lot of time to fix her hair? What is the father doing? Is he balding, have a beer gut, or handsome?

    What is everybody wearing? Does the speaker have a birthday hat on?

    Who is taking the picture? Did it have to be set up and put on auto timer or is someone not in the picture?

    I think that from here, if the idea is to expand the draft and its images, do just that. Flood the draft with as much imagery as you can squeeze into it, and then start cutting it down, and editing. I really like this draft and there is a lot of potential in it and a thousand directions you could take it in.

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