Joshua_Tree1 Jul 2005

We'd love to have our best work come out everytime we put pen to paper, but that is unfortunately not so.

I maintain some delusions or pretensions of being published during my lifetime, so I hold back on posting anything until I have some measure of objectivity. Book and magazine publishers want rights of first publication if they are going to pay for a piece. Those rights aren't available if you've published the material in any manner, including self-publishing or posting on the Internet.

Some people are prolific or polished enough that they could spew forth professional verse on a continuous basis. I'm not like that. I rely heavily on a system of constant revision to get the layers of flavor that I want into a poem. Like an accomplished chef, I might invite the opinions of others when working on an appetizer or a soup, but a new desert or entree will not see the light of day until it meets my demanding specifications.

My B material is "vestigial, workable." When it comes to my A material, I'm rather intransigent.