[Julie Steiner]

DRAFT TWO (with changes to S3L1, new final stanza; S5L4 briefly put in strikeout text, then taken out of strikeout text; new S6L2; new S2LL3-4)

1. Rondeau Redoublé

     from "Circumlocutions: A Primer"

Poets, please, no more confession.
Make us guess your soul’s condition.
These days, readers crave compression —
let your sins be of omission.

Save self-centered exposition
for your psychiatric session.
Eating crow is poor nutrition,
poets. Please, no more confession.

Obfuscate your point’s addression.
(Bring no message to fruition.)
Clarity’s the worst transgression.
Make us guess your soul’s condition.

Aim for spareness and concision.      <<       NOTE: This and later strikeout text will be typeset that way, not cut.
Use descriptors with discretion.
Adjectives deserve derision
these days; readers crave compression.

Less is more and more is less. Shun
pleonastic repetition.
Give your pruning shears a freshen.
Let your sins be of omission.

Self-as-Muse? Mere superstition.
Show, don't tell of, self-possession.
Brief and baffling’s your ambition.
Wit and music, deaccession —
     poets please no more.


Tweaks:

S2LL3-4 were:
Heed this helpful admonition,
poets, please. No more confession.
S5L4 was briefly:
Let your sins be of omission.
S6L2 was:
Show your lack of self-possession.
Mime your lack of self-possession.
Show (don't tell!) some self-possession.




DRAFT ONE (with items changed in Draft Two marked in red)

1. Rondeau Redoublé

Poets, please, no more confession.
Make us guess your soul’s condition.
These days, readers crave compression —
let your sins be of omission.

Save self-centered exposition
for your psychiatric session.
Heed this helpful admonition,
poets, please: No more confession.

Obfuscate your theme’s addression.
(Bring no message to fruition.)
Clarity’s the worst transgression.
Make us guess your soul’s condition.

Aim for spareness and concision.
Use descriptors with discretion.
Adjectives deserve derision
these days; readers crave compression.

Less is more and more is less. Shun
pleonastic repetition.
Give your pruning shears a freshen.
Let your sins be of omission.

Self-as-Muse? Mere superstition!
Kill your darlings, like Koresh in
Waco. Baffling's bards' ambition.
What amuses, deaccession —
     poets please no more.

[Rick Mullin]

Well, it's very clever. The struck-through lines are the high point. It rises above most of what is presented in the Lite Verse category because of the sharp treatment of language.

Here, I shall bring in the bug-a-boo of subjectivity and narrow opinion:

Any poem, no matter how good, starting with, "Poets, please..." can never really be good.

I would rethink the Waco pass. As in whether to include that at all. Nothing rhymes with Janet Reno, if you catch my drift.

Just off the top of my head, I guess you could refer to anything having to do with Budapest as Budapestion, which I pronounce: Budapeshin. Again, a matter of subjectivity and taste. ~,:^)

Rick

[Julie Steiner]

Thanks very much, Rick — that's hugely helpful. Draft Two posted above with red tweaks.

I had been debating whether the narrator could get away with treating mass sexual predation and death as a casual punchline, and you've convinced me that the indecency of doing that is too distracting.

Glad you found the strikethroughs amusing.

[Richard G]

Hi Julie,
I enjoyed this a lot until I got to Waco so was glad to see that replaced. But it now feels a bit toothless there. Is there another ending to 'Kill your darlings'? (Something involving abortion perhaps, though that may also be too indecent.)

RG.

[Max Goodman]

The clever rhymes and (as has been pointed out) the strike-outs bring a lot of fun here.

I'm not sure the form helps. Repetends are, after all, repetitions, and the poem's repeating itself flies in the face of some of the advice it's giving. Would striking out the repetends add fun? Would it then become a criticism of the form, which wouldn't be of much interest to anyone other than poets who write in repeating forms?

The poem seems to have two complaints: poets' self-centeredness and their verbosity. That seems to imply that the two faults tend to occur together. Is that so? If the poem makes that case, I'm missing it.

(Leaving entire drafts up might be particularly helpful in this case. First coming to this after a revision, I had to read comments to be certain that the strike-outs were meant as part of the poem.)

FWIW.

[Julie Steiner]

Thanks, Richard and Max.

Max, your comments inspired me to edit the original post, this time marking things in Draft One that were changed in Draft Two instead of the other way around. Thanks. I've also added strikethrough text to one of the repetends, but doing that to all of them didn't feel right to me. Alas, the confluence of the confessional, the verbose, and the repetitive will be glaringly apparent in the context of my other work.

Re the form, you might appreciate the title of Dorothy Parker's.

Thanks for the endorsement of leaving out the Waco reference, Richard. I think I'll save the "Kill your darlings" for another poem.

[Max Goodman]

Striking out "Let your sins be of omission" gave me a laugh (which it might not have done if all the repetends had been struck out). Good call.

[Alex Pepple]

Hello, Julie,

I like how this unfolds—your wit and control over the form make for a sharp and engaging piece. Most of your revisions are effective, but while I agree that Waco might be too risqué, the new ending feels a bit toothless in comparison. The original had a cutting finality that really landed, and I think you can retain that impact while keeping the "kill your darlings" trope.

Here’s a possibility that might work:

Self-as-Muse? Mere superstition!
Kill your darlings, like tactician
Brutus stabbed cold, with ambition.
What amuses, deaccession—
     poets please no more.

This keeps the **dramatic force of the original** but swaps in a **literary betrayal** instead of a real-world event, making it just as impactful but more fitting in context.

Good luck with this!

Cheers,
...Alex

[Susan McLean]

Julie, to me, all of those strikeouts lay it on too thick. I got what you were doing with them, but it seemed too obvious. I'd suggest getting more metaphoric and less literal. I do admire anyone who can pull off a rondeau redoublé.

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts, Max, Alex, and Susan.

Max and Susan, I'll have to set this aside and look at the strikeouts with fresh eyes next week. Thanks for weighing in on those.

Alex, I agree that the final strophe isn't quite there yet. I hesitate to mention Brutus (who, BTW, was a real, historical person, not just a literary character!), because he appears alongside John Wilkes Booth in another poem in this series. Also, the rhyme scheme requires an -ession rhyme in S6L2, rather than another -ition rhyme. (Just about the only -ession rhyme I haven't already used, if "Koresh in" is off the table, is the "zession" of "possession.") My husband's family are Shanghainese Catholics, but "Sheshan" feels too rhyme-driven, even so.

Susan, thanks for the hat tip, and for letting me know the strikeouts are a bit too overdone for you.