poetry rewrites: you gotta love them

WEDNESDAY

so ive been working on this brer rabbits tales project, its more than a notion
arent they all, you dig in and you always find the water deeper than you realized

ive been reading the collected works and its daunting, this antebellum guys notion of
slaverylife and the passing on of its cultural treasures and all along my plan was to

reclaim those works as cultural instruments, but ima catch flak for retelling these tales,
and the process of infusing them w/cultural dignity is going to be challenging,

one big problem is that these are clearly address to a plantation culture, how do i make
them pertinent not only to a urban contemporary culture but to future generations, not only

pertinent but critical

im hoping i can get thru this 800 page text and extract what im going to extract by the end of next week

no, i have to focus, it will be far more impo to finish drafting the hoodoo book of flowers

would like to do that before i get on the road to memphis, its just that its such an immense slushwork task
i got to revise the old 400 page manuscript, extract relevant passage from rewritten 200 page mojo rising

and - most daunting -  go through almost 10 years of blogging and extract relevant observations/passages-
from all this im going to have about a 1000 pages of old manuscript/notes to reformat/reconcept into new format

straight out slushwork, hours and hours and hours of it, id say of good month of slush work easy
a month w/no satisfaction because it will be strictly trashwork, moving pieces of old text around

and all thats just to get a draft i can work with, a draft instead of a bunch of notes - thats when the real work starts

okay, i have to switch back to that as primary task, w/this brer rabbit as backburnered
read the text when im trying to decompress at night before going to sleep, i really want to get

thru it and get it done because i dont necessarily want this in my head while im fullcourt pressing

my holybook, but you know the gods of literature often know better than me, and things i think are distractive,
ive generally found in retrospec that my obsessions were what i needed at that stage in the game

ima go w/the hoodoo book of flowers, brer rabbit as sidegame - a luta continua

i had a moving time at louis reyes funeral, as i knew it would it pulled out all the warrior clans
and amiri was presiding, his eulogy turned it out, and once again made it clear, amiri still the king

he such a little old man now, but he still packing power, and just a real good vibe

hes aged well

have not heard from industry about novel, been about a month now, starting to get a little fidgety

focus, rick, soon come - and if it dont fuck them, its a good book

 im out

 

 

 

THURS

that that keep up will note that i deleted the last post about how great i felt about that novel
it was a moment of euphoria about finishing the draft that i soon recovered from

am deeply invested in the hoodoo book of flowers, had this big mess of oldtext & notes
some 500 pages of it, and was kinda overwhelmed, but i got a process now and thats

all i need, going to be great googobs of slushwork, breaking up old text & moving it around, but such is life
in the literary lane - at least i got a grip on what i need to do to turn it into a viable draft, so lets get busy

part of getting a grip on it was figuring out a system for moving text around in a 500 page document
i wont bore you by explaining it but i had to stucture a system for it, often i have students trained to

do shortstories who do a novel like its a string of shorts - and i tell them no - one document, and they are like
how will i move text around in it and i say you get the hang of it by doing it, im tempted to explain the system

i set up for this one but i will have mercy on you and restrain myself, suffice it to say you must have a system

great article here about obamas likely stature as one of americas great presidents
just that the jugdment wont be in for some generations, thats the way it works

talks about how the left considered lbjs greatsociety (socsec etc) a sellout because it was
so weak when it was imposed, sound familiar, but that once it was locked in it evolved

i gotta go, i got so much slush work, every passage i do here is one i didnt do for a Text

also tarabooks asked me to do a brer rabbit collection, so i been working on that too
when i need to take a break from this slushwork - been reading the collected works

of brer rabbit and one thing is clear is that they arent really childrens works, no matter what disney says
or if they are childrens works its more along the lines of grims fairytales than contemporary childrenwork

ie a little more gritty than we put on children these days

how about that brer tyson, i like that this brother on top of the space game, i want blackfolk fully invested in space

i believe space is the place, that humanity has to get off the planet, that accidents happen, rogue meteors, nuclear winters, global warming - one planet is not enuf to insure survival of the species, we got to get off

the planet, spread out, increase the odds of survival

im out, got to get my own contribution to the surival (and illumination) of the species done

 

 

WED

repend/poetry draft took about a week or less, which mean the novel good to go
so its back to the hoodoo book of flowers now - somebody cover me, im going in

to erase or edit your google search history before the new privacy policy takes place tomorrow, type in google.com/history,
you will get google sign in page leading to your history - edit it to your satisfaction, or erase the whole thing

too bad about saint torum, got to talking crazy and blew his shot, i want him to pull mitt so far to the right he cant find his way back to the center in inovemeber, but saint torum doesnt have sense enuf to hide his foolishness

like mitt and the other guys - bummer

 

MONDAY

have totally been unable to catch up w/george, ima have to trek to memphis, soon as i finish this draft

dug into RFTW, again, but im loving it this time, its a poetry rewrite, novels done, you just cleaning up the poetry & muddy passages, when one passage, one word can add layers of meaning to the text, just this morning

i added a line - my work will read better after im gone - just where it could do the most service

okay, some aggregating

ejdionne: rcp: obama hasnt won it yet - saying repub clusterfuck puts him better shape but dont get wobbly,
it will be a hard fight - too bad santarum keep talking crazy, he cant restrain himself, hes pretty much toast

my hope now is that romney has had to go so sharply right that he will not be able to center himself during election

tomasky: tdb: the gops michigan giveaway: dissing the autobailout out of obama hatred will cost them michigan in november

chait: nytmag: 2012, now or never: repubs have bet it all on 2012:

"But by forswearing compromise, it opened the door to a single shot. The Republicans have gained the House and stand poised to win control of the Senate. If they can claw out a presidential win and hold on to Congress, they will have a glorious two-year window to restore the America they knew and loved, to lock in transformational change, or at least to wrench the status quo so far rightward that it will take Democrats a generation to wrench it back."

ok, this aggragating isnt working, i dont have time to troll the internet, i dont mind putting up ones that catch my interest but that aint enuf aggragating - we will see, right now i got redpen to do, im averaging about 20 pages a day, hopefully i will be thru w/this in about a week

 i got to go

 

 

Comments

[BuffaloSoldier]

HE WAS THE HARD RIDING HERO OF THE 10TH CALVARY BuffaloSoldier salutes LittleBobbyHutton Part 2 Why I call the President The LionKing. First, an irony that almost escaped me. He put on his BlackAmerican Identity, visiting New York and being interviewed on the Steve Harvey Show just as auditions were being held in Harlem for kids to appear in a production of the LionKing. I can't make this stuff up. Anyway, I remembered Jake La Motta the formal, formidable world middleweight boxing champion. He faced them all. Sugar Ray Robinson, Tony Janiro etc. With a ghost, he wrote his life story. The Raging Bull. Harry Reid er Hollywood came a knocking. He was overjoyed. He told anyone who'd listen he'd play the lead since it was him. Hollywood broke it to him gently. "Jake, you're not the type." They broke out Robert De Niro. "Now here's a Jake La Motta we can hang our hat on." It's the very same for BlackAmerica. We're not the type according to Disney/HarryReid and the guys. And to prove we're a weak field, we're thrown 999Cain/Keyes that fit nowhere/ and a West without a wing. That's you, BlackAmerica. And that's when we're not The Real HouseWives of Atlanta. So the third Irish President of the United States is a stand in for us(His own words while visiting Ireland: Nobody is more Irish than me!) We don't do our own vetting. That's why we're not even considering, say, Stewart Alexander. He might not be our cup of tea either. But nobody is checking him out. By the way, that's all that vetting means. It's more Ironic to me and telling that instead of Etta James signing ther signature song at the coronation, an actress that portrayed her in the movie did the honors. It's also ironic that all of those that did the crying at that same coronation are now at each other's throats. West/Belifonte/Smiley on the one side, Sharpton/Dyson/Williams on the other. Black Americans all! Have at it! Somewhere in all of the allcolades that accompanied the movie, I know Jake La Motta wishes he could have portrayed himself in reel life as he had to portray himself in real life. Just as I hope there will be no more stand ins for Black America either. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message.

[nanakwame]

How are you Sir? I sent my minimalist memoir to iUniverse, and the Times is out of their mind for buying license. They want me to pay for a clip on Fred Hampton, please. I just re-work it. I going to publish my first e-book. The ladies in NYC they love some Kindle.
It is some cray times. Iya Katrina is in South Africa and has published another book. Went to her 6_ birthday party and she had lived Jazz, my girl. Keep going on we need your story. Check out my lament, man the amount of musician and artist that left us since 2010 with Abbey was heavy. We wouldn't see that much talent on this Earth for many moons.http://ifagroup.info/blog/ Got me a twitter many for RSS feeds and #haiku @serendipnana
Peace Love, Rythmn

[arf]

good luck with the publishing mountain, i was in brooklyn for louis reyes funeral and i went by the brooklyn library because i got there early and they have this ondemand printer in the lobby, apparently you can bring a text there and get it printed up,

they had samples of some of their works and the production quality was satisfactory, im plan to put that to use somehow, or something of that sort, i plan to publish my revised mojo rising myself and segue that into a publishing house - im in a mood to take care of business

[nanakwame]

OMG Louis Reyes passed, man I missed that one - wow I knew him since the Young Lords day. Yes why I use iUniverse you push your own