Sympathetic Reader
in which I appreciate an outside ear
I’ve just been to a conference (this one) where it was suggested to me that Gerard Manley Hopkins was able to create the perfect poems he did in more or less isloation (he was a monk) because of the sympathies of one reader to whom he send copies of the mss by letter. Knowing someone would read them was enough to keep him going.
I’m thinking of this now because I’ve just recieved by mail comments on my upcoming poem book, Phases, from a reader whom I don’t know, but who offered (having seen my post about an upcoming collection) to give it a look. God bless him, instead of emailing some comments, he printed the whole thing, making handwritten notes, and mailed it back to me. Reading his marginalia, I was amazed: he noticed everything: slightly too-strained syntax here, a misplaced image there. Granted, none of the suggestions for improvement will actually work: poems are difficult that way. It’s difficult to move anything around without ruining them, but I feel in the company of a deeply sympathetic reader and more productive therefore.
Another bonus: there are a full 7 poems in the version I sent him that he marked out as favorites that I had stripped from the final version I sent to the publisher. I’m trying to find out now how (and where?) to put them back in before it goes to print.
Anyway, thanks MM for your acumen and eye.
