Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction
The following is a piece of writing submitted by Laura on January 29, 2010
"I learned an interesting lesson with this one. This poem was originally two verses long. I had typed it in notepad on my computer, and went to copy it elsewhere so I could trim it down a bit, and then saw a giant "C" come up in place of the text I'd just highlighted. Oops. No automatic draft-save on that little application. So I was rather discouraged and wasn't going to bother re-typing it, but then I did, and only ended up with one verse... but what I figure is that this may have been a fortunate happenstance, seeing as it forced me to recall only what I felt was most important to the poem.
Having said all that, I still feel like it needs work, but the first step has been taken anyway. Sometimes, as my Poetry Writing professor once said, you have to "murder your darlings.""
Having said all that, I still feel like it needs work, but the first step has been taken anyway. Sometimes, as my Poetry Writing professor once said, you have to "murder your darlings.""
January
It would be to our benefit to forgetyou, gray and dreary chasm between that
season of family and the season of "love",
fixed to keep them from running into each other.
January, you work to passively smite us, and those
new beginnings you crush with relentless apathy,
whispering words of excuse on wintry winds,
telling us it's good enough to just survive,
at least, if only, some other time,
we really did try, but you threw this whole
thing into gear before we were ready,
ticking off the days just as fast as
any non-beginning or happy plateau would do -
so that time just floats from memory, and
all that thrives is what was formed before
the party ended, fed by friendship, until
only you, January, cold and cruel,
show us which resolves are true.
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