{"id":842,"date":"2017-03-19T13:03:15","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T17:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=842"},"modified":"2017-03-19T13:03:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T17:03:15","slug":"first-drafts-broken-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=842","title":{"rendered":"First Drafts, Broken Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Drafts, Broken Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

Someone said, and many have repeated it-where the rumor started, I don\u2019t know-that a writer shouldn\u2019t send first drafts out for the public eye.\u00a0 But, I am a writer who makes up her own rules, does her own thing, \u2018cause someone said, and many have repeated, a writer needs to take risks or she will just sound like the choir (although I do like the music of choirs, but the point is sometimes I need to sing alone).<\/p>\n

On another note, a writer I truly respect told me I revise the energy, the spirit, the meaning out of my poetry when I revise.\u00a0 It\u2019s true, revising for me is like shopping.\u00a0 Once my cart is full, I throw out some things, others I put back and exchange them for another.\u00a0 Sometimes I do this again and again.\u00a0 This basket of strawberries.\u00a0 No, this one, the similes are endless.\u00a0 These tomatoes on the vine.\u00a0 No, these are are full of contradiction.\u00a0 Chocolate marshmallow fudge ice cream.\u00a0 No, vanilla, subtle.\u00a0 This bread.\u00a0 Yes, give me all the nuts, the flax, the wheat-concrete images. Yet, sometimes I just say, be gone, be gone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some say a writer must write every day, early in the morning in fact.\u00a0 Early for me is 10 a.m., and by then I am already running late.\u00a0 I write when I\u2019m sitting in a class and the demand is to write following the guidelines of a particular writing exercise.\u00a0 Surprisingly, I\u2019ve gotten some good poems this way.\u00a0 But, I don\u2019t often sit in writing classes.\u00a0 My norm is, when self-pity fills my lungs, when anxiety and fear punch my stomach, when country songs and chic flicks don\u2019t soothe my troubled soul, I reach for my 3 x 5 or my 4 x6 index cards, my leaking roller ball pen, and I write.\u00a0 I number the front, the back.\u00a0 The stack rises. The purge releases words I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 There\u2019s a rhythm too it.\u00a0 A longing.\u00a0 A stunning revelation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been months, years, sometimes only weeks.\u00a0 Yesterday\u2019s sorrows became yesterday\u2019s poems.\u00a0 I read them over and over mouthing each sound, whispering, repeating, louder now, faster now.\u00a0 Until, I\u2019m inside out, exhausted.<\/p>\n

Awake now, today now, I risk giving these poems to anyone that wants them, anyone that might need them, anyone that wants to rip them apart and theorize them.\u00a0 This is a selfish gift.\u00a0 A gift nonetheless.\u00a0 Someday I may want to return, to revise, to revision-to edit, and I\u2019ll know where they are, and that they served me well.\u00a0 And maybe you will not notice the blemishes, but the possibility.\u00a0 And maybe your next poem might be about your great-grandmother or begin with \u201cIf truth be told\u201d and maybe you will give it to the world pleased with its inception, free with its release.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Sherry Quan Lee, March 19, 2017<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IF I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH<\/strong><\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> my friend is a born again Christian, my son is a redneck.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em>, loneliness is my demon and always has been.<\/p>\n

My sister does not talk to me my mood swings cause her stress<\/em>; she\u2019s<\/p>\n

done it before, stopped loving me when I loved a woman,<\/p>\n

and the woman, my mother, well my sister stopped talking to her, too.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em>, according to Mother, I am white, white, white<\/em>, but I\u2019m not<\/p>\n

and neither is she.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I\u2019m not a writer, my advisor was right they didn\u2019t teach<\/em><\/p>\n

me and somehow I knew it was my fault.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I don\u2019t want to go to church, or book stores or plays where<\/p>\n

I know I either have to listen or perform;<\/p>\n

or comedy clubs.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I want to see my three-year-old granddaughter.\u00a0 My nine year old grandsons.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> the gig is up-shopping, gambling, even eating and though the smoke has<\/p>\n

already cleared I don\u2019t need therapy or an excuse to hide my feelings.<\/p>\n

my heart is an old open book full of clich\u00e9s, chocolate truffle smears, and tears.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I have been cloistered-it\u2019s not my calling but my situation.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> my car isn\u2019t safe, my house isn\u2019t breathing, I could in a wink of an eye be homeless.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I don\u2019t want to fly I don\u2019t want to wander; I haven\u2019t missed anything in 70 years.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I\u2019ve fallen before, but this time the fracture wasn\u2019t worth mending.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> I want to sing it is done, get over it, I am over it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> there is nothing beyond survival, I have nothing to give you, the world<\/p>\n

is wound too tight we can only untie knots, try not to slip on the laces.<\/p>\n

If I told you the truth<\/em> I always wanted to be the clown the stand-up comedian the one no one<\/p>\n

would guess wasn\u2019t me.<\/p>\n

If I told you the truth<\/em> I wouldn\u2019t tell you the truth but ease into your life.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> being of a certain age is not what someone else says it is, not what you expect,<\/p>\n

and everyday is a question mark.<\/p>\n

To tell the truth today<\/em> I looked out my window.\u00a0 Satisfied.\u00a0 Rocking. Back and<\/p>\n

forth, catonic-like, rocking.<\/p>\n

If I told you the truth<\/em> the youth have the words, the works, the camaraderie, the meet and greets,<\/p>\n

the relationships.\u00a0 Solidarity. Each other\u2019s backs.<\/p>\n

If I told you the truth<\/em> I\u2019m not a bridge, never pretended to be one.\u00a0\u00a0 Every breath, every step difficult.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> it\u2019s too late for me to be anything, but<\/p>\n

righteous. \u00a0And, alone.\u00a0 And, lonely.<\/p>\n

The truth is<\/em> I\u2019m tired.\u00a0 It\u2019s late.\u00a0 I have [no] regrets.<\/p>\n

The truth is<\/em> I don\u2019t want to recycle.\u00a0 Spin it anyway you want, but I won\u2019t step outside<\/p>\n

my skin. The stretch is all mine.\u00a0 Was mine.<\/p>\n

If truth be told<\/em> the world sees no one, story becomes someone else\u2019s theory, and you<\/p>\n

and I don\u2019t meet online, or in a bar, in the future or the past.<\/p>\n

The truth is<\/em> tomorrow, I might leave my house, walk to the mailbox, but today in this moment<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in my pj\u2019s, eating popcorn, watching Netflix.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9Sherry Quan Lee<\/p>\n

March 18, 2017<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saint Patrick’s Day 2017 (1948-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 )<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear red hair son of the Irish plantation owner do you know how complicated you\u2019ve made my life?\u00a0 You, so absent in your southern ways.\u00a0 A prickle in history not so long gone, nameless, yet, ever present in my naming.\u00a0 Did your father teach you not to fear consequences, did he tell you my great-grandmother was yours for the taking because he owned her.\u00a0 Or did he say, hands off, son, she\u2019s mine?\u00a0 Money can\u2019t buy everything, it certainly can\u2019t buy complacency.\u00a0 But, yes, Ms. Greer kept your house clean and the both of you, sons of southern hospitality, well fed.\u00a0 And you, in return, paid her in lust, in rape, in pregnanc(ies).\u00a0 Sure there were the rumors, you loved her, my great-great grandmother, her glistening, black skin and textured thick hair; strong legs, warm hands; but, it wasn\u2019t a love story.\u00a0 But grandmother was born anyways.\u00a0 Beautiful, free, and independent.\u00a0 It was her own doing she traveled North, married a man with his own black white history and the babies kept coming.\u00a0 Mother denies she is born black, but if black was a lie, she would have nothing to lie about and I, her daughter, would have no truths to tell, secrets to uncover.\u00a0 So many secrets that have filled books and heartache and joy- sometimes joy- knowing there once was a plantation and a red hair boy, but if she had only known she really needed only this, this one poem, this one little splash of green, a bit of humor, and a blind eye, if she only knew she didn\u2019t have to give up her life to know who she is, if she had known.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sherry Quan Lee<\/p>\n

\u00a9March 18, 2017<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Drafts, Broken Rules Someone said, and many have repeated it-where the rumor started, I don\u2019t know-that a writer shouldn\u2019t send first drafts out for the public eye.\u00a0 But, I am a writer who makes up her own rules, does her own thing, \u2018cause someone said, and many have repeated, …<\/p>\n

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