Help! I can't keep track of my poems!

[BlueskyBeauty]

That's so sexy....

kinda like a monkey playing a guitar

i got your kiss tath, and just wanted to say ty

it's good to be back!

 

[SeattleRain]

That's so sexy....

actually now that I think of it, I used to be able to burp "grape ape"

and half of the alphabet

 

[Tathagata]

actually now that I think of it, I used to be able to burp "grape ape"

and half of the alphabet

lol
we really should have been kids together

 

[Tathagata]

kinda like a monkey playing a guitar

i got your kiss tath, and just wanted to say ty

it's good to be back!

 

[annaswirls]

Okay damn it thanks Eve for reminding me of poems in the outbox, took like an hour to clean out (ha) my email storage wtf

lol


and then tried to do Taras thing but everything was going into the "work on these" folder like 3 went into the already edited one, and I guess a bunch into the hopeless category and um I am still not half done and I am already asleep.

 

[twelveoone]

Okay this is a plea for help. For suggestions. Anything!


Since December I have written um like 300 poems.
Many are little ones and many suck, so more like 200 lol.

Most of them are rough and dirty.
They need to be cleaned up, polished a bit,
some need to be taken out to pasture
put out of their misery.

I brainstorm at passion,
revise some at my livejournal,
post some on lit, some elsewhere
revise more,
forget to re-submit revisions to lit,
print some, not others,
workshop at another place,

These bastards are all over the place and I cannot keep track of them!

I am trying to get organized so I can be more serious about finding homes for them on ezines, etc.

But I am like,

OKAY where oh where is the last revision??

There are too many to keep track of!
Sometimes I cannot even remember the freaking title!

How do you do it?
Will you come clean up my files????

You, my good woman, need a secretary, or, as they are probably called nowadays, a personal assistant.
How should I submit my resume?
As to your poetry, I have all of them under my pillow, they are wrinkled and some are a bit unreadable now. I would be glad to box up all 24 volumes, and ship them to you, as it is getting harder to sleep with each passing day. If you would be so kind as to send a check to defray shipping costs, please make out the check to I. Scammin

 

[SeattleRain]

Re: Re: Help! I can't keep track of my poems!

You, my good woman, need a secretary, or, as they are probably called nowadays, a personal assistant.
How should I submit my resume?
As to your poetry, I have all of them under my pillow, they are wrinkled and some are a bit unreadable now. I would be glad to box up all 24 volumes, and ship them to you, as it is getting harder to sleep with each passing day. If you would be so kind as to send a check to defray shipping costs, please make out the check to I. Scammin

ha ha ha

put em in a shredder they will make nice bedding for your pet hamster

 

[jd4george]

Somewhere, a page or so ago, Annaswirls asked about how people kept track of their stuff. Tarablackwood's comment about her "system" is wonderful.

I say that, because it's damned close to my own.

The primary difference 'tween hers and mine, (and I'm talking about our filing system!) is I seriously pre-date computers. Editing is so much easier now. Click, click, and a new version exists. I used to go through reams and reams of paper, scratching out stuff, making notes, etc. And not having a photocopier (and no money) made multiple submission days a real bitch!

But, there was (is) a profound and simple pleasure in doing that.

It is a pleasure that our poetic forebearers did all the time. Keyboards and bytes and mouses were fantasy. Shakespeare stained his fingers with ink. So did Sappho... and Hemingway... and:______________ (fill in the blank).

It took a lot of time. But that time afforded the opportunity to touch and feel the words... one by one.

So, I celebrate this new technology that lets me tinker and edit and change... keeping or discarding as I go along. But, I desperately cling to the old.

For me, no poem I write is real until I hit "print".

I want to see it on the page. I want to hold it in my hands. And if I tinker and make notes and scratch-outs... I edit the file and hit "print" again.

It's part ritual... part ceremony... part homage to the past.

The benefit is no lost files... no corrupted data, etc. Even more so, is the stack of paper that represents my poetic life.

Besides, I cling to a desperate little fantasy of a news item, long after my death, proclaiming that a previously unknown manuscipt (or poem) of mine was recently discovered tucked in the back of some pulp novel hidden in some attic. The preauction estimate is in the millions!

What the hell... if we can't have grandiose dreams about ourselves, why go to sleep?

 

[tarablackwood22]

Somewhere, a page or so ago, Annaswirls asked about how people kept track of their stuff. Tarablackwood's comment about her "system" is wonderful.

I say that, because it's damned close to my own.

The primary difference 'tween hers and mine, (and I'm talking about our filing system!) is I seriously pre-date computers. Editing is so much easier now. Click, click, and a new version exists. I used to go through reams and reams of paper, scratching out stuff, making notes, etc. And not having a photocopier (and no money) made multiple submission days a real bitch!

But, there was (is) a profound and simple pleasure in doing that.

It is a pleasure that our poetic forebearers did all the time. Keyboards and bytes and mouses were fantasy. Shakespeare stained his fingers with ink. So did Sappho... and Hemingway... and:______________ (fill in the blank).

It took a lot of time. But that time afforded the opportunity to touch and feel the words... one by one.

So, I celebrate this new technology that lets me tinker and edit and change... keeping or discarding as I go along. But, I desperately cling to the old.

For me, no poem I write is real until I hit "print".

I want to see it on the page. I want to hold it in my hands. And if I tinker and make notes and scratch-outs... I edit the file and hit "print" again.

It's part ritual... part ceremony... part homage to the past.

The benefit is no lost files... no corrupted data, etc. Even more so, is the stack of paper that represents my poetic life.

Besides, I cling to a desperate little fantasy of a news item, long after my death, proclaiming that a previously unknown manuscipt (or poem) of mine was recently discovered tucked in the back of some pulp novel hidden in some attic. The preauction estimate is in the millions!

What the hell... if we can't have grandiose dreams about ourselves, why go to sleep?

I love reading your posts.

Make a poem out of the last 2 paragraphs, please.

 

[jd4george]

Thanks, Tara!

All too often I suspect my posts are nothing more than the ramblings of a child of the fifties & sixties railing at the moon! (Somehow, that sounds nicer than "old fart in training").

I'll tuck the last two paragraphs away for "musing".