jeff newerry

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The Book as Journey:  Jazz, Manuscripts, and Project Books

5/29/2012

2 Comments

 
I’ve spent the last few weeks furiously editing my poetry manuscript, going over each word carefully, and rearranging the book. I feel that the finished product is strong—very strong. I worry that I probably wasted a lot of money this past spring term submitting to contests, but I suppose that’s part of a writer’s life these days. I wonder how much money I’ve spent the past three years on contest fees? I don’t even want to know.

Which, of course, makes me wonder:  is the contest route the only way to get a book of poetry into print anymore? Of course not. Some presses offer open reading periods. At the same time, however, many of the better small presses open their doors to unknowns (like yours truly) only during contest season.

But I’m getting off track here. I wanted to write about editing and architecture, particularly the overall arc of a book of poems. The last decade has seen the publication of many books of poems that are project-oriented. I think of Tyehimba Jess’s amazing debut, Leadbelly, a biography-in-verse of the famous blues singer. I think of Kevin Young’s Black Maria, a noir-in-verse that’s well worth a read (or re-read, as it were). Books by Jake Adam York, Sabrina Mark, Sean Hill, Danielle Pafunda, and others pop to mind. I don’t know if this is something new in poetry publishing1. And I don’t want to pass a value judgment on this trend, saying whether it’s good or bad. It just is.

And because it just is, I found myself looking for some kind of overarching something to hold my book together. I found it, I believe, but I don’t want to talk too much in specifics here on my blog. Suffice to say that this urge to build a book as a “project” (for lack of a better word) might spring from my love of narrative fiction.

I come to poetry as a storyteller. From my earliest years, I told stories (often whopper lies to whomever would listen). When I first went to college, I wanted to be a novelist and write books and follow in the footsteps my then-heroes, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, and Jack Kerouac. I loved narrative, then, and I still do, now.

At the same time, I have a musician’s love of the lyric moment. As a guitarist, I like getting in a pocket, some blues or jazz riff, and staying there as long as I can, working the scale, working the box. I love how a writer like William Matthews does the same thing in print, occupying a moment in time and exploding it, a al John Keats. Rodney Jones does the same thing for me, though he manages to somehow be a lyric storyteller.

Which is what I want my book to be:  a lyric narrative. Or perhaps a narrative lyric. Or something.

I think of the jazz musician’s journey, the way he sets out from the tonic note and occupies that space before returning to the dominate. Jazz is this way—the story of leaving and returning. But it’s not just the overall story of departing and coming home that interests me about jazz. It’s the journey itself, the way the soloist brings himself back home. That’s what interests me. That’s the kind of poetry I’d like to write.

Recommended reading:  Michael S. Harper’s Dear John, Dear Coltrane, Ed Pavlic’s Winners Have Yet to Be Announced:  A Love Song for Donny Hathaway, T.R. Hummer’s The Infinity Sessions

_____________________________

 

1 Of course, in the end, the overarching project book isn’t new at all. See Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems and W.C. Williams’ Paterson among many other, earlier examples.

2 Comments
Tara Mae Mulroy link
5/29/2012 04:45:55 am

You and I are in the same boat, my comrade! Looks like you've already a lap ahead of me though. How was the contest submitting your first go?

Reply
Jeff Newberry link
5/29/2012 05:11:45 am

I found it to be a good (if expensive) experience mainly because each time I put the mss. in the mail, I looked at it closer and closer. I've been sending this book out in various forms for about two years now. And the odd thing is that only very recently have I come to have some confidence in the book.

A friend of mine who won the BOA press competition a few years back said he sent his mss. out FOR SIX YEARS before he got any bites. I hope that's not true for me (or you, for that matter!).

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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  • Home
  • Biography
  • Writing
    • Cross Country
    • A Stairway to the Sea
    • The Gulf Stream: Poems of the Gulf Coast
    • Brackish
    • A Visible Sign
  • Teaching
    • Curriculum Vita
    • Teaching Philosophy
  • Contact