#poetry drafts

[illusions-and-allusions]

23.11.2024 - Hidden Wound (fragment)

[jessijordanpoet-blog]

I can't count the times I've sworn to strangers that everyone is worthy of love. The angry poems I read (and sometimes write) about us stutter and choke because I still refuse to cross you off that list.

Jessi Jordan // draft number one (via jessijordanpoet)

[jessijordanpoet-blog]

These days I hold you on my tongue like the best chocolate, too strong to bite, too cherished to swallow, and most of all, bittersweet.

Jessi Jordan // draft number two (via jessijordanpoet)

[thegroaningbook]

Li-Young Lee on an Early Manuscript

Letter from Li-Young Lee after reading an early manuscript.

Written shortly after a lunch conversation and a brief trip to Boston, the note accompanied his comments on the poems.

“Fight the good fight,” he writes, before adding: “Keep your soul-garden tended. Does that approach meaningful language?”

The letter remained with the manuscript.

[thegroaningbook]

Mark Strand on Two Poems

Inscription from The Sargeantville Notebook followed by two manuscript pages from an early group of poems read by Mark Strand in 2005.

Strand marked several lines and left brief notes on both.

These pages remained with the manuscript for many years.

The poems would later appear in Between Here and the Sound of a Groaning Interstate, alongside its companion volume, The Groaning Book: A Poetics.

[illusions-and-allusions]

13.1.2025 - pocket knife's distraction

[illusions-and-allusions]

20.12.2024 - Crash (fragment)

[illusions-and-allusions]

29.11.2024 - Loathing (fragment)