Woman in a Blue Anorak redraft

Here we are at about draft 7. Often I write more drafts but with some poems I find that they are what they are, there is only so much tweaking you can do and only so far the poem can be pushed. In this draft I didn't change much, just the couple of words shown in bold italics, which just flitted into my head as I was rereading. The ommission of the word 'like' is shown with a hat ^

Woman in a Blue Anorak

She snatches at the corners of eyes.
Courting blackbirds before her capoeira
their tails treacle and syrup fans.
Her face is blank flesh, melted ^ ice.
She flicks a cigarette, and as the ash falls like dice
she shifts her weight sideways and
the blackbirds switch to samba.

She could be made of sand,
disintegrating in a breath, leaving only
frozen folds of navy PVC.
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
She flicks her cigarette, and ash falls like slo-mo dice.

(Copyright (c) 2011 stays with me).

So why did I change it, and what does changing only a couple of words achieve?

This poem is very different to my usual style. It works with a couple of different rhymes and/or half-rhymes repeated throughout the poem (along with alliteration, something which I find myself using a lot of and that I sort of consider a key characteristic of my work). These rhymes run throughout the poem, broken up here or there but carrying on over both stanzas.

The rhyme scheme echoes the structure of the poem, in that the structure echoes itself between lines. Apart from repeating one or two lines in their entirety or near-entirety, various images are repeated, almost motif-like. The dance (capoeira...samba), the repetition of the idea of liquidity (treacle and syrup...melted ice)... The poetry of the piece comes from the repetition of these ideas, images and the words themselves.

These qualities kind of came out of the poem of their own accord. I redrafted it and at about draft 5 I thought, 'ooh, it appears that I have subconciously stuck in some rhymes and repetition!' However, I like the effect. I like the way the poem kind of flows, then it broken up by the only/PVC anomaly, kind of a little flicker in the poem, and then continues again. This absolutely captures the flickering ghostliness of the woman.