manuscript synopsis

Last week I went way out on a limb and submitted a manuscript of poems to a prominent (at least in the sphere of poetry) publishing house. This was a  maneuver worthy of the limb cliche because for whatever reason I am not a widely or frequently published poet - either, my work doesn't fit within the current poetic zeitgeist, or is just not very good ... probably both - and one is in need of a certain roguish poetic street cred to get a book out which isn't self-published.

I honestly don't expect for them to put my work into print. But why the hell not try? Maybe I'll receive some kind of feedback beyond the usual, 'thanks, but no thanks' rejection email.

The collection, pretentiously, maybe temporarily, titled relationship(s), consists of work I have written over the last four/five years, although work produced over the last year makes up more than half of the book. In piecing it together, I tried to find in my writing some kind of consistent thematic thread. I'm too obsessive compulsive about structure to just present a smorgasbord of my 'best of' poetry; there needed to be something to ground the whole project. The title is indicative of what I searched for and found consistently in my work.

This obsessiveness proved useful when it came to producing the 'synopsis' that the publishing house asked of me in the process of submission, for I already had a general idea of what I was attempting to communicate, transmit, expose, uncover, analysis, contain, frustrate, entangle, whatever.

However, weirdly, even uncomfortably, the piece I wrote for this submission is probably better than anything in the collection itself, albeit without the misdirection, literary references and self-indulgent turns that scar my poetry. I thought I'd share it. No rhyme or reason, like most of my work:

largely considers the relationship(s) we have. not just with loved ones, but with those who inspire us to write, read, exist—some kind of tradition—&, all too obviously, the relationship(s) we have with ourselves. the poetry assumes, embodies, presents, tries (but fails) to become the instability of any contact we have with these external & internal figures, often as they come to us at the same time. we are ourselves in others, & others are in us, so that we—as consciousness, as writing, as comprehension—are the cumulative totality of these interactions. yet, who are we if we are only the sum of others' opinions? who are we when it is only in another that we feel we can know ourselves? the poetry is about, & evades, this knowledge & these questions: trying to be itself in an existence which will inevitably measure it against whatever gave it impetus to exist in the first place: lust, admiration, confusion, love, hurt, reconciliation. it wonders if we are all surface. it adopts a reflective sheen to its movement. it is a voice whose flavour drifts away on the air, only given sense in the act of this dispersal that leads to the eventual immersion in others.