Evie Shockley
I normally don’t have much to say about revision—not because I think it’s not important and certainly not because I consistently turn out publishable-quality first drafts. Instead, I think, my approach to revising is so organic and intuitive that I can’t articulate the reasoning in a meaningful way to others. It’s often quite incremental, on top of that; no dramatic before-and-after, in most cases.
This poem struck me as a candidate for the underbelly forum because it had two fairly distinct false starts (a.k.a. rough drafts). The first was concerned primarily with celebrating the persistence of some of my Black feminist heroes whose work focused on electoral politics. I also wanted to weave some maternal family history into the piece, in a kind of counterpoint to the more iconic figures. I love to play with form, but in the initial draft, form was overwhelming the ideas rather than opening up the poem. The draft was just blah blah blah prose prose prose.
The second draft downplayed form—I dropped into free verse using only visual line length as my formal measure—in favor of nailing down the voice and tone. That shift of focus allowed the poem’s interest in the vote itself to surface. I retained some nods to individual women I admire, but worked on trying to capture some of the many reasons why voting has mattered to me and for me. Did I mention that there are many reasons? The scope began to drift and balloon out of control.
Even though neither rough draft made it to completion in my notebook (and I’m only providing the first pages of the incomplete drafts), the process of starting them both clearly fed the third draft, which I typed directly into my computer. I went with the voice and medium-short free verse lines that the second draft had produced. But I found a way to heighten the stakes using form, going back to the first draft’s intent to alternate between family history and national history. Further, as the poem had found its key idea in the contrast between what the 19th Amendment meant for Black women as opposed to white women, I was inspired (that gift!) to use children’s rhymes—revised to highlight and/or feminize their racial connotations and undertones—as transitions between the sections. The end result is the poem I contributed to the Academy of American Poets joint initiative with the New York Philharmonic, Project 19.
*
This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative, and appeared in the Spring-Summer 2020 issue of American Poets.
< draft>
< final version>
women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?)
eenie meenie minie moe
catch a voter by her toe
if she hollers then you know
got yourself a real jane crow
* * *
one vote is an opinion
with a quiet legal force ::
a barely audible beep
in the local traffic, & just
a plashless drop of mercury
in the national thermometer.
but a collectivity of votes
/a flock of votes, a pride of votes,
a murder of votes/ can really
make some noise.
* * *
one vote begets another
if you make a habit of it.
my mother started taking me
to the polls with her when i
was seven :: small, thrilled
to step in the booth, pull
the drab curtain hush-shut
behind us, & flip the levers
beside each name she pointed
to, the Xs clicking into view.
there, she called the shots.
* * *
rich gal, poor gal
hired girl, thief
teacher, journalist
vote your grief
* * *
one vote’s as good as another
:: still, in 1913, illinois’s gentle
suffragists, hearing southern
women would resent spotting
mrs. ida b. wells-barnett amidst
whites marchers, gently kicked
their sister to the curb. but when
the march kicked off, ida got
right into formation, as planned.
the tribune’s photo showed
her present & accounted for.
* * *
one vote can be hard to keep
an eye on :: but several /a
colony of votes/ can’t scuttle
away unnoticed so easily. my
mother, veteran registrar for
our majority black election
district, once found—after
much searching—two bags
of ballots /a litter of votes/
stuffed in a janitorial closet.
* * *
one-mississippi
two-mississippis
* * *
one vote was all fannie lou
hamer wanted. in 1962, when
her constitutional right was
over forty years old, she tried
to register. all she got for her
trouble was literacy tested, poll
taxed, fired, evicted, & shot
at. a year of grassroots activism
nearly planted her mississippi
freedom democratic party
in the national convention.
* * *
one vote per eligible voter
was all stacey abrams needed.
she nearly won the georgia
governor’s race in 2018 :: lost by
50,000 /an unkindness of votes/
to the man whose job was
maintaining the voter rolls.
days later, she rolled out plans
for getting voters a fair fight.
it’s been two years—& counting.
Aria Aber
I began writing this poem in Madison, Wisconsin last year—my first, lush, and last summer in the Midwest. The city was covered with bugs, the lake’s stink permeated every crevice of my life. I was sick with desire, with loss. Every surface I touched seemed pregnant with meaning. And yet our lives were mundane––my friends and I did ordinary things: we went for picnics and potlucks, we read poems to each other, we drank wine by the lake and spoke of Sailor Moon. Something was ending—it felt evident then, with the bloom and rot of every flower, the way the denouement of a phase sometimes announces itself in your mind. I tried to write about it in a poem, but all that emerged were snippets of desire and of lost chances––musings on failed romance. The first draft of this poem was a scribble in a notebook; I knew the beginning lines, but I didn’t know where it ended. Then, on my laptop, I started experimenting with the sequence of images and sounds. In the second draft, which is pictured here, I stumbled on this image of the Mughal pianist in a bombed museum in Kabul, an image I actually dreamed of, and which seemed completely displaced in the world of this Midwestern poem. Nonetheless, it felt important and so I kept it. I didn’t understand the relevance of the pianist for a while, though studying it taught me something about where the poem wanted to go––away from desire and toward art-making, a nod to an ars poetica.
Revision, to me, is about listening to the poem’s intelligence, as esoteric as it sounds. I want the music to guide me away from logic and toward intuitive knowledge. I want to discover something about myself and the emotional truth of the poem, something I didn’t know before. I edit by ear, but I also try to listen to the images that creep onto the page the way the bugs crept into my apartment––everything can be be a key to a lock I didn’t know of. Throughout editing, it was important to preserve the variation of syntax from the initial drafts—full stops where the heart is stopping, in awe and fear. Repetition and rhyme for the lushness, the cyclical quality of heat and summer. In the final version, I changed some details: I added the nudity of lovers, the waiting for nightfall, and I exchanged “mouth” for “hands.” The poem’s desire, I understood, wasn’t about the mouth and lips, it wasn’t about kissing or speaking—but about the hands of the pianist, the hands which make music, and write. And, ultimately, the revision process taught me that this poem wasn’t about the lake, per se, but about entrances––the door of chance, the door between one person and another, yes, but also the door to my dreams. Of course, the process never ends: even after submitting what I thought was finished, the poem haunted me and wanted to change—the pianist was no man anymore, but a woman; and there was something to be said about the loss of countries, as well as the loss of romance. Even now, I feel the poem’s seams aren’t entirely fixed yet, which is why this final version might still transform over the next few months.
< DRAFT >
the lake
We ate cheap curry all summer under the foul
canopy of trees. The lake studded with
insects. The city reeked of algae and broth.
You touched my wrist. How awful
to be liked, I thought, and to hesitate at chance’s
door. When I rinsed the oily Tupperware
in lakewater, I was thinking
again of the bombed museum I had seen
in a dream. It wasn’t the doorless entry
amid ruins that scarred me, it was the painting
of a Mughal pianist leaning against a wall,
his face covered with rubble, but his mouth
leaking its red wound, persistent as desire, the vascular sun
that thins and thins the thread of distance—
all day, the lake’s stink crept into my arms,
stuck to my old clothes. A fine lace of green bugs.
Every window cracked to admit the lake’s thick
sludge. I wanted to, I did. But luck had me at a loss;
it is, I learned, luck to yearn for what I have
lost. When I gave you that blue book,
this is what I was giving. The fondness of hours.
My good, inferior heart. Too much of it.
< REVISION >
the door
We read the imprecise books all summer under
the foul canopy of trees. Strange insects
marveled the lake, the shore swelling
with algae and broth. You touched
my wrist. How awful to be liked, I thought,
to hesitate at the door of chance. What
did it cost to enter? When I rinsed my wrists
in oily lake water, I was recalling again
the ruined painting I had seen in a dream:
a Mughal princess sitting by a piano, her face
obscured with rubble, but her hands leaking
their red wounds, persistent as desire,
the sun that thins and thins the thread
of distance—how palpable it was then, that no man
could give me what I wanted, which was divinity,
the consecration of an instrument. The algae’s
disease crept into my apartment, confessed
to my good clothes. A fine lace of green
bugs. We never abandoned the lake’s
thick sludge. Afternoons, we lay down naked
on the floorboards and waited for something
to change. Nightfall, or our lives. You touched
my wrist. I wanted to, I did. But luck had me
at a loss; it is, I learned, luck to yearn for what
I have lost. When I gave you that blue book,
this is what I was giving—the republic
of hours. My good, subordinate heart. How much of it.
Carlos Andrés Gómez
This poem reckons with a brief, passing moment with my best friend in fifth grade, as we brushed our teeth before bed at a sleepover, which remains imprinted in my memory. I want to show this very rough first draft, and as a means of comparison with the finished draft in my book Fractures, because it typifies two of my Achilles’s heels as a writer: I overwrite and often feel drawn to interrogate what scares me but then struggle to be courageous in the excavation required (particularly in my early drafts). Put differently, I write around and away from what I tell myself I am confronting. Thankfully, my grad school advisor at the time, the brilliant and uncompromising C. Dale Young, received this first draft and crossed out half of the poem in red. Then, he challenged and guided me in a way that completely transformed this poem. First, he asked, “Why forsake the line?” He rightly pointed out that flouting lineation “give[s] up the tension between line and syntax that a poem like this needs.” What that form in the first draft did in this poem, as he noted, is “obfuscate.” He pushed me to be courageous and clear, told me that this poem “demands bravery and straight talk,” which, initially, completely disoriented me. That advice seemed to run counter to so much I had internalized about poetry (and what I thought it should be). I believed that a poem of such straightforwardness and clarity would inevitably lack depth or surprise. At that moment in my poetic orientation, I often conflated vagueness with mystery, unnecessary ornamentation with profoundness, when, quite to the contrary, streamlining language and casting one’s focus to the heart of what’s being explored often unearths the greatest surprise and, therefore, resonance. “Pronounced,” in this final draft, has remained one of the poems I hear from readers about the most. If nothing else, I think it proves that a poem guided by “bravery and straight talk” can be compelling.
* Photo by Friends & Lovers Photography
* Poem from Fractures by Carlos Andrés Gómez. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. © 2020 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
<DRAFT>
WHEN YOUR BEST FRIEND SAYS, “YOUR HISPANIC ACCENT IS BARELY NOTICEABLE.”
You hardly remember your mother / tongue. What you used to play / with your sister. The sleepover / stretches on so long that yesterday / stops existing. What came before: a shallow wake / steadying itself after a storm, before the real storms. You bury / toothbrush against right molar / and scrape / and scrape whatever / you find. Excavate / anything that has tried to lodge itself / in your body without permission. / Scrape / the Dominos sausage tucked against / gums burying wisdom teeth / that will one day announce themselves / & be removed / before they ever see light. / Scrape & scrape. / Before they live out their purpose. / Scrape. / Loss makes you feel all the other losses. / Scrape. / Eleven years later when you no longer eat pizza / or speak Spanish. / When your father’s silhouette invades / your clenched jawline / like an omen. You borrow / his brisk gait, snort, his face. People say / you look white. / He never does. / Not at the restaurant that won’t seat us / or the suburban cafe littered / with stares. You are a man / by then with a quick mouth / four teeth less crowded / trying to roll your r’s. / Where did they go? / Those four teeth? / Who is hoarding them? / I need to know who keeps what is excavated / while we sleep.
< REVISION >
Pronounced
You excavate anything that has tried to lodge itself
in your body without permission. You bury the toothbrush
between your back molars and scrape whatever
you find. One loss makes you feel all other losses.
Eleven years later, when you no longer eat pizza
or speak Spanish, when your father’s profile invades
your clenched jawline, you borrow his brisk gait,
his snort, his face. People say you look white.
Your father never does. The restaurant won’t seat
you, the hostess says neither of you meet the dress
code (your father’s wearing a double-breasted suit).
You are a man trying to roll your r’s again. Where did
the words go? You are still trying to retrieve the sounds
you once dreamt in. You hardly remember your mother
tongue. You are trying to pull something useable from
the wreckage. Yet it all feels familiar. Your best friend
compliments your clean pronunciation, the way you have
learned to let go of everything you once called home.
Nicole Homer
The original idea addressed the parent/child dynamic in terms of a child, the remembering speaker, walking in on the parents having sex and not understanding or not being able to name sex as sex. It was unruly and I’m not sure I knew the question I wanted to ask myself.
Between the first and second drafts, the speaker’s position changes. Instead of the intrusive child, the voice is now that of put-upon parent. That dynamic remains, but now instead of a child’s movement towards what is that noise, the adult knows what the noise is and is, in some ways, the object of it. The noise is a clamoring for attention, a child’s plea to get a parent to side with them.
The lines are irregular, and the enjambment feels accidental or arbitrary. I’ve divided it into rough scenes, separated by time or space (“every morning,” “in the kitchen,” “every day”). I’m still telling myself the story—or asking myself the question.
My word choice is more intentional now. We have team, but also the arguing among the team members. A phrase that will eventually make it into the final draft "egg after egg after egg" first appears here. I’m talking both domesticity and procreation and all of its violence. But, I’m still not sure who it’s aimed at.
Race enters the poem. It’s a costume and part of a larger heroic construction. The "white woman's face" is about a standard. (How) is this important? Is this only about costuming? I'm not sure yet, but I’m getting a better outline of the stakes.
The other tension I’m poking at is a grotesque one—in the sense of insides going out or upsides going down. Wonder Woman's face is on the speaker's ass. This reversal of the natural order complicates the costume idea by making it (more) absurd. But, it's not a real costume as much as it is a team jersey, a uniform. That’s, perhaps, the question even if it is a pleading one: We’re a team, aren’t we? Even if we’re absurd, we’re a match set, right?
With the next revisions, I look more intentionally at enjambment and stanza, but the tercets with their approximate one natural end stop each that the poem will eventually embody aren’t there yet. Neither is the color, American, but disordered, that will start the poem.
What I ended with was not at all a poem about interrupting and misunderstanding sex between two parent figures. The shift, the largest in my revision process, to identify with the parent, the mother, who is constantly interrupted as a state of being and can barely name the violence and the inadequacy of parenting—the costume as mask as distraction as aspiration. As I wrote through it, I realized that the parents in the first draft didn’t have any answers either.
•
This poem originally appeared in Rattle.
Photo by Nicholas Nichols.
< DRAFT 3 >
WONDER WOMAN UNDEROOS
In the kitchen, the face of a white woman
is stretched across my ass. Her straight teeth
snug against each handful of me. Her smile,
slightly distorted but still iconic, looks through the doorway
into the dining room at herself: three smaller smiles
stretched across three smaller asses. We match
every morning. They say: Mommy I want
you to wear there is an inexhaustible list of heroes
they ask me to imitate. This is how I parent:
in a skin I didn’t choose. But didn’t I
buy them all these white women
and heroes? And who has not wanted to wear someone
else’s pelt? In the evenings, I throw the white women
into a pile in the corner. Some days, I lie to the children
say that I am wearing what they chosen. Some days
I just want to dress myself. But I don’t
know what else a mother would wear
if not her children’s want for someone better.
< DRAFT 4 >
WONDER WOMAN UNDEROOS
In the kitchen, the face of a white woman
is stretched across my ass. Her straight teeth
snug against each handful of me. Her smile,
slightly distorted but still iconic, looks through the doorway
into the dining room at herself: three smaller smiles
stretched across three smaller asses. They should sit
instead they wander the dining room. This is how they conquer:
by overwhelming the table and chair. They swarm
and wander and swarm and wander and laugh
wait for me to make them breakfast, so I break
egg after egg after egg.
We match
every morning. They say: Mommy I want
you to wear there is an inexhaustible list of heroes
they ask me to imitate. This is how I parent:
in a skin I didn’t choose. But didn’t I
buy them all these white women
and heroes? And who has not wanted to wear someone
else’s pelt? In the evenings, I throw the white women
into a pile in the corner. Some days, I lie to the children
say that I am wearing what they chosen. When I am not
Some days
I just want to dress myself. But I don’t
know what else a mother would wear
if not her children’s want for someone better
< DRAFT 1 >
It was the noise that drew me to the room
As if my parents were moving furniture or else my mom was being beaten by my father
I, hero child, was determined to help one way or another
I don’t know why but I opened the door quietly
Meaning I knew I shouldn’t be opening the door even as my hand turned the knobbed.
We had no locks in our home meaning every door was open
until it was closed by my mother’s stern face. This door
was closed until I opened it
the first thing I see on the floor is a pair of workshoes. Next to
her dress. A dowdy thing she wore to work too often.
Then I think, her underwear. Cotton, plain.
When I listen to music, the beat often disappears. It is still there, but
I don’t hear it: my parent were still moving furniture or engaging in domestic
violence
but it is far away.
I can see my parents now. They are not moving furniture. I did not have a word for what they were doing
< DRAFT 2 >
You can buy underwear with superheroes on them in almost any size if you visit the right website
The children and I match
Almost everyday
Today, it is wonder woman
We are not to be fucked with. We are a team
----
Every morning with them is like this: Mommy I want
you to wear the Wonder Woman ones and match me.
Then, another voice: No, match me. Wear [something else],
please. I say Today, Wonder Woman and tomorrow we can wear
[I choose from the inexhaustible list of heroes my children love]. I am not
in the room when the fighting continues. I do not acquiesce because I want
to wear the underwear. I’ve seen the movies and shows
and books.
I break
egg after egg after egg. In the kitchen, the face of this white woman
stretched across my ass.
----
In the kitchen, the face of a white woman
is stretched across my ass.
In the dining room,
three small asses, three more white women
hugging each curve of their bottoms with her perfect
white teeth. We match. What do you call family if not
----
every day. I do not
acquiesce. I am not reluctant
the Wonder Woman ones and match me.
Then, another voice: No, match me. Wear [something else],
In the dining room,
three small asses, three more white women
hugging each curve of their bottoms with her perfect
white teeth. We match. What do you call family if not
< FINAL VERSION >
WONDER WOMAN UNDEROOS
Next to the red and blue heat of the stove, the white
woman’s face is stretched across my ass. Her straight
teeth snug against each handful of me. Her smile,
slightly distorted but still iconic, looks out into the dining room
at herself. There, three more of her, three more
of me: one holds up her bracelets. Sharp flash of ricochet,
another wild thing almost tamed by a woman flaunting
a docility gifted to her. How shiny it is. The bullet
and the bracelets and on the next small body, a tiara.
There is nothing that was not once alive
in the kitchen. I am here because what wouldn’t I kill
to call myself mother? In the other room, their perfect need.
What a beautiful weapon atop that woman. The last body:
a lasso turning above her head. She will make us tell
the truth. I do not like the children
asking me for food. I am tired of the open,
loud mouths of these choices. I want to be an indestructible
white woman, a weaponized smile. How do you fix your mouth
to ask for more? This is how they conquer:
by overwhelming. They swarm the table and chair
and crawl and climb and laugh and spill and
they wait for me to make them breakfast, so I break
egg after egg after egg. How else can you feed your young
without the currency of someone else’s? We are the same
every morning. They say: Mommy I want
you to wear there is an inexhaustible list of heroes
they ask me to imitate. This is how I parent:
in a skin I didn’t choose. But didn’t I
buy them all these white women’s smiles
and heroes? And who has not wanted to wear someone
else’s pelt? In the evenings, I throw the used white women
into a pile in the corner. Some days, I lie to the children
say that I am wearing what they have chosen. When I am not
their mother, I still choose the familiar heroes. I want to be
someone else: a woman whose young is not open-mouthed,
waiting to be rescued. I am so tired. Some days
I just want to dress myself. But I don’t
know what else a woman would wear
if not her children’s want for someone better.
Bianca Lynn Spriggs
One of my undergrads recently observed in a reflective essay, “It seems like poetry is the most vulnerable of all types of writing.”* I love the way he phrased this, because a poem really is its own ecosystem, and understanding the balance of what to veil and what to reveal when is its own art. It’s a different muscle group than the initial writing. Revision places the poet in a predicament. We’re thrust into wondering to the point of obsession: a) What am I actually trying to say? and b) How do I say it the most effectively? These questions are deceptively simple. They can lead to overworking the piece with unnecessary details or editorializing. Or, we risk ruining the dismount by a line or a stanza too many to satisfy our need for closure when perhaps the reader should be left to wonder. How to know?
In the case of this poem, I began with a form I enjoy because it’s a loose, narrative structure. When I write about an incredibly personal experience like this, I don’t want to focus on the confessional aspect of the encounter—I want to say something larger. So, I didn’t want to bog the poem down with a sort of pitiful, victimized tone. When revising, I decided to let the form be more stream of consciousnesses. I made the decision to push the momentum and not confine myself to a form. I let the lines come off a little more haphazard, a little more breathless, to mirror the content. And in a stroke of misdirection, I added a detail about the photo to let the reader up for air in the last section. Finally, I took the emphasis off of the speaker’s feelings by changing the title, so the poem reads more detached as though they are answering a specific question. Sort of like, ‘Well, you asked, so, here goes.’
I know a piece is complete (or close enough) when I actually feel a physiological reaction. Either a little shiver with goosebumps or the sudden urge to cry. For me, the latter came when I changed the “mouth shut” bit to “vise,” because the image was that resonant—it felt like an internal bell being struck.
Writing poems, for me, is much like shedding a skin. I prefer a poem to come out cleanly as possible in one piece, because what I’m trying to say is that fully-formed. I may tinker with syntax and line a little bit, but for the most part, it’s all there. Obviously, there are times when I’ll hit a snag, for whatever reason, the way I did with this poem, and the revision process will require me to be a bit more heavy-handed when trying to situate the content with the right vessel. This process feels about as precarious as reaching down a kitchen sink drain to manually remove a blockage from the garbage disposal. You reach in when you know the blades aren’t running, but what if they inexplicably turn on while your hand is down there? What a mess, right? That’s revision. No loud noises, no sudden movements.
* John Amato, Ohio University (used with permission)
< DRAFT >
THERE’S ALWAYS A FIRST: A BOP
It was the time we went to an amusement park.
We’d decided to ride the fastest, cruelest
rollercoasters, and in-between, we’d buy hats
with our stage-names airbrushed on them
and eat so much junk food and spoil ourselves
because we were celebrating me moving home.
People like us we play with a heavy balloon
We saved the worst rollercoaster for last,
and right as we got on, he told me,
I’m not going to scream. And I said,
Then, what’s the point of getting on?
He said, Do what you want. I just want to see.
And so, he did.
And I did.
And that’s how we spent the entire ride.
People like us we play with a heavy balloon
For a long time, I kept the photo—
I used to take it out and look at
when I needed to remember
he’d sat next to me while I screamed
for both of us, and he kept his
mouth shut and smiling.
People like us we play with a heavy balloon
< final version >
YOU’RE ASKING BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE
It started with the one time
we went to an amusement park.
We decided to ride only the fastest,
cruelest rollercoasters,
and in-between,
we bought airbrushed hats
and ate so much junk food
because we were celebrating
me moving home.
We saved the most cantankerous
rollercoaster for last, and as we boarded,
he said, I’m not going to scream.
I said, Then, what’s the point of getting on?
He said, I just want to see.
And I said, Well, I’m still screaming.
And he did.
And I did.
For a long time,
I kept the photo—
the one they take
on the last descent
to catch you
and several strangers
become something like family
in that 78 mph second
you almost fear for your life,
and then, still wobbly-legged
and insane, you buy it
for twenty bucks as evidence
of what you’ve survived
with someone.
I used to take it out
and look at when I needed to
remember there’d been a first time
he’d sat next to me—silent—
while I screamed for both of us,
ashamed I couldn’t keep
my mouth a vise
and smiling.