Blog

In which the poets voice their individual opinions.

Tuesday morning I went to the East River around 730 a.m. and that was wild…I walked across 10th street with my dog Jesse to get there and at that time had no idea that a 14 ft wave had hit. I noticed many cars were rearranged and some just sitting in the middle of the street and I realized the water must have been that high. Then I went across the FDR on the 10th street overpass and saw the drive was closed and flooded in some areas. I walked down from 10th on the promenade all the way to Delancey. There was so much debris-oddest thing was a beehive which pieces and slats covered about a quarter of a mile. Plus I saw a splattered mouse. The beehive I think had been at the environmental center farther down across from Delancey. The wind was still high so I went back after an hour or so because I wanted to stay inside. No phone, news, emails, etc. I slept the whole day off and on, plus went out with Jesse a few times…and had a couple glasses of wine too. And kept reading the Roosevelt biography I had stopped reading a few months ago. I talked to a few people in the building and on the street. Everyone was just trying to figure things out.

When I went outside, a lot of people were clearing out of the neighborhood with suitcases and the stress and confusion was high. There was actually quite a bit of traffic and without traffic lights I saw my fair share of close calls with pedestrians, cars, etc. This seemed like the most danger both Tuesday and Wednesday – the dumb drivers. By Wednesday afternoon the FDR had opened and Bloomberg had restricted incoming passenger count, so things were more under control. Plus people seemed finally to realize that if there is not a traffic light, this does not mean you have the right of way. It means you have to be extra careful. This was not a 9/11 situation where people were nice after the event. It was/felt like an ‘every man for yourself situation!’

Welcome. This lawn is restricted to picnics and passive recreation. Please be courteous and respectful to others, and keep the park clean.
Rules prohibit:

• Active sports
• Dogs and pets
• Amplified sound
•  Barbecues and open fires
• Illegal drugs and alcohol
• Littering and glass bottles

I am pondering the phrase passive recreation. I have walked by this sign for almost eight years but only noticed it for the first time last week. Apparently, I can admire the trees while sitting on the lawn but if I stood and performed jumping jacks, this would be prohibited. If I wrote a poem I could tell people that I had written it as an exercise in passive recreation. I don’t think one would be allowed to move very quickly either. Walking might be OK but running would be considered active. I am considering how the creation of such space in a public park corresponds to the creation in one’s mind of quiet, private areas. This seems to be one of my ongoing jobs as a poet: to continually create such space in order to be able to write and have a poem connect to the world at large.

I draft poems and rewrite poems by hand and my process is messy and, I admit, I am a little disorganized and chaotic. I was sure I had this particular poem in a particular pile written on card stock (for some reason). But I can’t find it. I’ve looked everywhere and even looked (yes) in my computer with the idea maybe I already put it into an electronic form by accident.  But I can’t find it anywhere.

I never dare put a poem in electronic form until I am sure I am close to done, at least for the solid first draft. As I rework the poem I edit by hand and again, when I am sure, I commit to electronic form.  I always have felt it is a betrayal of the poem to put it into the computer before I have worked with it a bit.  Guilty? Yes, I feel guilty if I don’t work with it by hand.

Now…I have lost a poem and I know I have also lost other poems in the past as I have also lost other things in life – as Elizabeth Bishop of course would understand – but I was quite sure this poem was in a specific pile. I need to look at the pile again and maybe turn each sheet upside down in case my lines were on the back of the paper, not the front, as I first assumed.

Nope, there are no edited poems on the back of these pieces of paper. There are other places to look also – even though I know the poem isn’t there. I’ll look in my desk and under the bed.  Under the bed is highly unlikely but if I was working with the poem as I was going to sleep it might have slipped underneath.

It isn’t in either place.  I’ll look again in the pile and maybe again in my computer in another folder thinking maybe I did decide to put it in electronic form already and may have misfiled it under another folder. For instance, instead of the folder for poetry maybe under ‘Finances” or “Photos” or “Resume”. But no, it is not misplaced in a folder.

I had rewritten the piece substantially and now I am not feeling so much defeated as annoyed. On the surface I would claim mild defeat but inside it is more annoyance, irritation. And if I can’t remember all the edits (I know there is a stanza three quarters of the way in that is lost to me) so I will begin to rewrite.

I know in the past I have lost poems and little pieces of paper with snippets of lines or images written down quickly. My filing system used to be messier but I do think when it was messier I actually lost less. I am trying to be more organized and was sure that poem was in the pile. I think I will look again.

Melissa Hotchkiss