LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Poetry Submission 2005
Sherry Mann
Final Version
Sleepers’
Dreams
A solitary chance for fame
In an everlasting line,
Filled with joy and optimism.
Yet, perspiration drops
From a teasing sun.
Suspense strengthens
As dense clouds intensify
With relieving merciless winds,
Glimpses of glossy grass, and
Lit skies flashing and sparkling,
Causing a shift to a place underneath
A worn, ancient bridge
Unpleasantly painted by pigeons.
Patiently waiting for streams of rain
To pass us by.
NBC, ABC, and Fox TV
Echoes of annoying melodies
Cameras spread out sporadically,
Available for dreamers
To steal a piece of their identity,
With hope of representation
Without assurance of fame or humiliation.
Time advances at last.
A swarm of exhausted
But steady Houstonians
Move into Minute Maid Park,
A dry resort of security and relief.
Sleepers in the stands, benches,
And hard cold cement beds--
All for a chance of auditioning.
Sleepers attempt to dream,
And several end up shattered
By rejections of the jaded judges,
Following the cold chill of the night,
Exhaustion of practice and anticipation,
The long lines of waiting and standing, and
The accumulated nervousness and deliriousness.
The strong defeat the weak again.
Losers exit to loser land,
Winners exit to hopeless happiness.
For most the attempt was
A suspenseful adventure,
A mild triumph,
An eternally capitulated memory--
No hope to face Simon.
But for me, life is where it should be.
First Draft:
Sleepers’
Dreams
A solitary chance for fame
In an everlasting line,
With cheerfulness and hopefulness,
With perspiration drops
From a teasing sun.
Suspense sets off as dense clouds
Grow with intensity,
With relieving merciless winds
And glimpses of glossy grass,
With lit skies flashing and sparkling
Causing a shift to a place underneath
A worn, ancient bridge
With occasional rumbles,
An area constrained for drops of poop from pigeons,
Patiently waiting for streams to pass.
NBC, ABC, and Fox TV
Cameras spread out sporadically,
Available for dreamers
To steal a piece of their identity,
With hope of representation
Without assurance of fame or humiliation.
Time advances at last.
A swarm of a tiresome but steady Houston crowd
Moves to the Minute Maid Park Stadium,
A dry resort of security and relief.
Sleepers in the stands, benches,
And hard cold cement beds,
All for a chance of auditioning.
Sleepers attempt to dream,
And many do but end up shattered,
By rejections of the judges
Caused by the cold chill of the night,
The exhaustion of practice and anticipation,
The long lines of waiting and standing,
The accumulated nervousness and deliriousness.
The strong defeat the weak once again.
Losers exit to loser land,
Winners exit to hopeless happiness.
For most the attempt was
A suspenseful adventure,
A mild triumph,
An eternally capitulated memory.
No hope to face Simon.
But for me, life is where it should be.
Draft Exchange:
I conducted my draft exchange with Karen Daniel and Audra
Caldwell. I emailed Karen my poem, and she replied that she would comment on my
poem as soon as she got a chance. We ended up sitting at a table outside the
cafeteria of the university with a group of friends as she looked over my poem
providing several suggestions. My conversation with Audra was entirely through
email. I appreciated all the helpful and insightful
suggestions—most I adopted, few I resisted, and some I took the idea and
experienced with it until I found a desirable outcome. Each reader was agreeable
to provide further help as needed. I later emailed them revisions of the poem
for additional comments or thoughts, and they willingly provided more feedback.
Karen suggested several changes including editing and
revision. She pointed out words and/or phrases that were unclear to the reader
such as “Patiently waiting for streams to pass.” This seemed to modify the
pigeons, which was not what I anticipated. We worked on this together and came
up with “Patiently waiting for streams of rain to pass us by.” She also
found areas of repetitive with “with,” and “the.” Karen found wordy
areas such as “And many do, but end
up shattered” and “Moves to the Minute Maid Park Stadium,”
and “steady Houston crowd.” She
found areas that contained incorrect vocabulary such as “Suspense sets
off as dense clouds” and “Caused
by the cold chill [. . .]” She also pointed out areas she enjoyed such as
the line, “Without assurance of fame or humiliation” because I added a fresh
idea. One would automatically think I would only say “fame” here, but I also
added “humiliation” to represent a
new thought.
In addition, Karen had the courage to tell me which line
she did not like. Fortunately, it was only one line, “An area constrained for
drops of poop from pigeons.” First of all, I used incorrect terminology.
Second of all, I used a word that was inconsistent with the more mature
language. I disagreed with her on the latter because when pigeons are messing
around you, your maturity level decreases. However, I respected her opinion, and
I started to agree the more I reviewed the poem. She suggested that I could
change the line to “Painted with drops of poop from pigeons.” I could tell
that the line was getting closer to its final revision. Later, I played with the
line a bit, and I finally revised it by keeping the new word, “painted,” and
deleting the silly word.
I also had a concern about my poem that Karen was able to
help me with. In my original version, I did not mention a word about singing in
the poem. My poem talks about my experience of trying out for American
Idol. I had a phrase in mind, “Echoes of melodious annoyances,” to add
but didn’t know where to insert it into the poem without interfering with the
stanzas. Karen seamlessly suggested an area to place my phrase, and it fit
perfectly. She liked it because it gave the poem a break from rhyming in stanza
four. However, later I decided to intentionally make this stanza sound jingly
and annoyingly melodious. I
switched the words, “melodious annoyances” to “annoying melodies”
causing more rhyme in that stanza. I found that it better fits the message for
that stanza.
Audra Caldwell informed me of the wordiness of my first
draft. She suggested that I should delete “With” at the beginning of two
different lines because she stated that “it jumbles it up for the readers.”
She also found stanza three (about the bridge and pigeon scene) confusing and
unclear to the reader, so she found that it “did nothing for her.”
Following her advice I worked diligently on deleting such
repetitions and wordiness. I revised my third stanza several times until I felt
completely satisfied. I wanted to make it clear what was going on in that
stanza. I felt it was important to have it in there because it was one of the
time consuming events of the experience. Everyone there to audition had to sit
underneath this old bridge for hours waiting for the rain to pass and waiting
for a speaker to announce what was to happen next.
I showed Audra my revised version of stanza three, and she
liked it. However, she stated that she understood the stanza only after I
explained what was going on. So I changed it again, and this was when I deleted
a line that threw off the meaning—“With occasional rumbles”—meaning that
I would occasionally hear cars pass over the bridge. I was trying to touch on
the sense of hearing in the poem, but it wasn’t fitting with the context. It
seemed to throw off the meaning anywhere I placed it.
I am really satisfied with my final version. I made almost
all the changes suggested by my readers, and I also made some changes prompted
on my own. I added some extra structure. In my 6th stanza, I tried to
make the structure/appearance of that stanza represent the accumulated negative
experiences that hindered mine and several others’ chances at making it in
that audition. To accomplish this, I had to resist both of my readers’ advice
about avoiding the repetition of “the” in the stanza. I also added some
punctuation such as the dashes to help the flow and to make the poem easier to
follow. I changed my original phrase, “Cheerfulness and Hopeless / With
Perspiration drops” to “Filled with joy and optimism. / Yet, perspiration
drops.” The former words seemed played out and boring, so I tried to choose
fresh words. Audra mentioned deleting the “with,” so I compromised by
changing it to “yet.”
I feel that the final version of my poem flows much
smoother than before. It gets to the point without wordiness or repetition.
Probably the most consuming and frustrating part to revise was the line about
the pigeon situation, but I overcame it with the help of my supportive readers.
Another challenge I faced was the use of alliteration, which I enjoyed the most.
I prefer alliteration to rhyming. If I could continue working on this, I would
want to change this from a free verse style to a metered style. It seems at
places I seem to be moving there, but it fades out in other areas. Overall, I
found this was an interesting experience. I thought that I would dread the
experience of trying to write a poem, but I found it as a positive challenge and
journey.