Help please.

[annaswirls]

What do you think of this poem without the last two lines?

The poem was accepted in a journal I really respect and have tried for a while to get into. However, they requested permission to publish it without the last two lines. My heart is torn. I am pretty sure I am going to tell them, no, you can't change my poem, the last two lines are important! But I was hoping for some feedback. Courage. Or tell me they are right.


Jonagold

Someone
made a decision to put numbers on my produce.
Who assigned Golden Delicious 1045
and Jonathan 2029?

My guess:
at that precise moment
scientists were given divine permission
to sew flounder genes
into our strawberries
so they too can be frost resistant.

All the way down Route 70
alpha-numeric codes on metal signs
mark the end of the corn rows.
I want my words back.

I want my words back.
The cashier does not know the name
of my onions.
She does not need to know
the name of my onions.
They are not even in season.

Vidalia
Vidalia

I whisper words with each laser scan beep.

We spit the stickers in the sink.

 

[another realm]

I understand the reluctance to chop off a piece of your "baby." I really do.

That being said, how much do you want the work published? Everyone needs an editor. Yeah, some are jerks and rise to the level of their incompetence. I've been lucky because mine have not had an agenda except to make my work better.

Get quiet and the answer will come to you.

 

[bogusbrig]

I can see why they want them cut but that doesn't mean I agree with them.

What will happen if you don't cut the lines? Will the poem just sit on your hard drive?

Hold your breath and delete them if that will get you into a journal you respect which I guess it means you will have a readership you respect.

You have many other great poems and a little sacrifice to get your name and work around is worth the price. I've been in this position with my artwork and in the end always bit the bullet because my theory is getting my name known is more important than my creative pride at times.

There are things I won't comprise but on many I will.

 

[bogusbrig]

I voted for chopping the lines and smiling but that shouldn't mean you should neglect the housework!

 

[Tzara]

I didn't vote, because my opinion is of two minds, either withdraw it and publish it somewhere else, or propose a different ending. I think the poem doesn't work well if the two last lines are simply struck off.

One alternate edit might be to remove the last lines and reorder the previous ones:

I want my words back.
The cashier does not know the name
of my onions.
She does not need to know
the name of my onions.

Vidalia
Vidalia

They are not even in season.​

But I think I like it better as you originally wrote it. The closing forms kind of a (semi) rhymed couplet close, which gives it, for me, a nice "wrap up" of both the sound and theme of the poem.

Good luck.

 

[flyguy69]

Does anyone else see extraordinary irony here?

Someone
made a decision that they know better.
Who cut the lines
off my poem?

I'm baffled because the last two lines are what brings the poem back around. I think them necessary.

I doubt that this is a deal killer-- ask them to publish it as is.

 

[Reltne]

Editors and publishers are part of a writer's life just like dentists and proctologists. If you want it published, chop it! Then when you publish your own anthology you can print the version you want. - I am somewhat surprised that they want to cut the final lines but need not want to stick an "on" in the first line.

 

[flyguy69]

Editors and publishers are part of a writer's life just like dentists and proctologists. If you want it published, chop it! Then when you publish your own anthology you can print the version you want. - I am somewhat surprised that they want to cut the final lines but need not want to stick an "on" in the first line.

Ummm... I've been getting by with just a dentist.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

ok, I voted for a change at the end.

I like what you were saying just not the way you said it, I'm not sure what it was something clashed at the end for me...
a little editing and then I would tell them take it or leave it ... compromise is good but only on your terms since it is your poetry

 

[Maria2394]

oh Anna, what a dilemma....

I was presented with the same problem with my urban sprawl poem at Red River Review. He asked me to leave off the last line, and I agreed just to get it in there and my hubby and kids were like, NO NO!!! that ruins the poem...I didnt think it did.


as for yours, I think it would survive without the VERY last line, but the next to last has so much feeling, I also like the alternative Tzara proposed. It is your decision and you are the only one who can make it and well, will you cringe everytime you read it altered?

Only thing about the last line is, Im thinking yeah, spit the stickers off the apples, but why would you even bite into an onion like that? I mean, vidalias are sweet but the skins are still well, onion skin


ITs good no matter how you end it

 

[Maria2394]

ok, I voted for a change at the end.

I like what you were saying just not the way you said it, I'm not sure what it was something clashed at the end for me...
a little editing and then I would tell them take it or leave it ... compromise is good but only on your terms since it is your poetry

I know Sabina!! Thats what I was feeling too. and I know what it was...went from apples to onions, both good, but it draws the importance of the stickers away from the apples where the skins are more edible , for me at least. It started with apples, ends with onions, thank god they dont put a sticker on every little grape...

 

[flyguy69]

If you really want to go back and edit this, Maria is right--the appearance of onions is an unnecessary switch, as is the shift from singular to plural pronoun.

But the juxtaposition of words with beeps is beautiful, and defiance of spitting stickers is the crux of the poem.

Wrestle with them, Anna!

 

[annaswirls]

If you really want to go back and edit this, Maria is right--the appearance of onions is an unnecessary switch, as is the shift from singular to plural pronoun.

But the juxtaposition of words with beeps is beautiful, and defiance of spitting stickers is the crux of the poem.

Wrestle with them, Anna!

I'd rather wrestle with you

Thanks y'all. I do not think it would be a deal breaker... it was put like this--

We were wondering, however, if we could run the poem without the last two lines, ending instead of "Vidalia / Vidalia", which feels like it shows a lot of the things that are said in the last two lines. Let us know if that would be all right.

But the spit stickers in the sink is my favorite part of the whole darn poem.

hmm
maybe I could work on the phrasing, it does feel a bit awkward, I agree.

 

[annaswirls]

thanks

this is about more than just this poem. I have had editors suggest changes that were more structural, a line break, suggested italics, etc. But this change feels to me like it changes the whole poem.

I didn't vote, because my opinion is of two minds, either withdraw it and publish it somewhere else, or propose a different ending. I think the poem doesn't work well if the two last lines are simply struck off.

One alternate edit might be to remove the last lines and reorder the previous ones:

I want my words back.
The cashier does not know the name
of my onions.
She does not need to know
the name of my onions.

Vidalia
Vidalia

They are not even in season.​

But I think I like it better as you originally wrote it. The closing forms kind of a (semi) rhymed couplet close, which gives it, for me, a nice "wrap up" of both the sound and theme of the poem.

Good luck.

 

[annaswirls]

I know Sabina!! Thats what I was feeling too. and I know what it was...went from apples to onions, both good, but it draws the importance of the stickers away from the apples where the skins are more edible , for me at least. It started with apples, ends with onions, thank god they dont put a sticker on every little grape...

oh my goodness, thanks Maria and Sabina I did not even think of the biting into the onion thing! lol! oh my what happens to a poem when you look at it closely

 

[clutching_calliope]

Bucking the trend

.....

 

[annaswirls]

I voted for chopping the lines and smiling but that shouldn't mean you should neglect the housework!

ooh that gave me a shiver down to my toes. should I get out the feather duster and French Maid outfit? Or do you want me hands and knees with cut off shorts, white tee shirt sweat drenched actually scrubbing the floor?

I wonder how many men realize what a turn on it is to see them doing housework. My husband with his hands in the dishwater is a hundred times more likely to get lucky than with his hands filled with flowers.



I am hijacking my own thread. Somebody stop me.

 

[annaswirls]

Dearest Annaeroo- I think I have to go with the editor on this one, I think the last two lines are implied in the thought-thinks Videlia/Videlia .

Sometimes we have to murder our darlings.

I didn't vote on the poll because I think it's your piece overall. And I love it. Either way.
Calli

okay I will consider it, but only if you go get yourself a darn av. all of this "in honey" is tease tease tease, I want visual proof that you are actually in honey. I am thinking one of those squeezy bear bottles would be a good prop.

 

[annaswirls]

oh my god, that is so fucking funny. I did not even notice the missing on! but they did, added it without even mentioning it to me I would not have even noticed that change at all

Editors and publishers are part of a writer's life just like dentists and proctologists. If you want it published, chop it! Then when you publish your own anthology you can print the version you want. - I am somewhat surprised that they want to cut the final lines but need not want to stick an "on" in the first line.

 

[bogusbrig]

ooh that gave me a shiver down to my toes. should I get out the feather duster and French Maid outfit? Or do you want me hands and knees with cut off shorts, white tee shirt sweat drenched actually scrubbing the floor?

You're a bad woman annaswirls but I wouldn't change you.


I hope you are going to inform us on your final decision and not leave us hanging on here with baited breath!

 

[TheRainMan]

I think the last two lines are repetitive, already implied, and injure the poem.

As your Mannequin Envy poetry editor, I say can them (though you might think about keeping the words "I whisper" after Vidalia Vidalia).

And congrats, wherever it goes. The poem is terrific (now that you've added the missing word "on" to the second line).

 

[LeBroz]

Okay, you've caught me in editor mode - that's all I've been doing this past week or so.

Chopping the last two lines seems to leave the thing dangling, making me then wonder, "What's the point?"

First, I'd try to press the issue and have it published as is. If they're adamant about it, and you really want to see it in print, try a compromise. See if they'll consider a change to that last line, maybe something starting along the lines of, "My pledge of remembrance..." or something similar to underscore the whispering in the preceding line.

After you do all that you can to either keep it as is or to compromise while keeping its spirit intact and they still want it chopped, then you've the hard choice to make. If I, as an unpublished writer faced this dilemma, I would probably go with the chop, see it in print, and see what response developed. Would readers respond and some sense that something seems to be missing or would they embrace it as is? This would tell you something. There's that and the fact that you would then be in print.

Oh and bear in mind, when you have hundreds of poems in print, you'll still have to beat editors into submission to accept your point of view, else they'll never stop chopping.

Good luck.

 

[wildsweetone]

a compromise...?

If you take out the last line then it could be covered by adding an exclamation mark to the second repeated line of: 'I want my words back.'

That the word 'Vidalia' is spoken, is obvious as it is italicised. However, it's not obvious that it's whispered (unless that is in the meaning of the word - I don't know what it means).

 

[WickedEve]

I like the last two lines, but I don't like them being the last two lines. Vidalia, vidalia is the perfect ending.
I voted for you to clean your house, because I'm a bitch who needs to mop my kitchen floor.

 

[Maria2394]

a compromise...?

If you take out the last line then it could be covered by adding an exclamation mark to the second repeated line of: 'I want my words back.'

That the word 'Vidalia' is spoken, is obvious as it is italicised. However, it's not obvious that it's whispered (unless that is in the meaning of the word - I don't know what it means).

WSO-

Vidalias are huge sweet onions that are SUPPOSED to be from a certan part of Georgia. Vidalia county However, a few years ago, laws were passed that increased the area for which the onions be grown and still be called Vidalia. They have a world wide reputation, (I thought), for being sweet as an apple to eat. But, the increased area doesnt always mean they are still good vidalias, sometimes they are smaller, not as sweet . In my opinion, just having a vidalia sticker doesnt make it a vidalia...Anna, is that kinda where you were going with the onion/apple idea?


by the way, I too love the poem. Regardles of apples/oinions, I like both, and would spit the stickers somewhere, probably not the sink cause Im the only one that cleans anything around here...I guess mine woudl go in the trash can...and soince you put it that the stickers are a defiant thing, yeah, you cant lose that.... damn, see? This is why I dont participate in the discussion circles and stuff..I tend to agree with everyone and that makes me no use to anyone...

;

love ya like an onion, baby