This is prosey and awful, but after recent conversation (MacKenzie, Sydney, Brandy...), I reeeally want to write a New England Prostitute poem, so I decided to do a freewrite on it... I'll be trying this again.
It's the streets of New England and there are corners that cross and bend around storefronts of baked bread and ship mending. Here, you picnic on leaves because that's all there is, the grounds saturated, the houses balanced on generations of tree-droppings, and everywhere is downtown. Families are cobblestoned in to Thomas Kinkade.
But look closer. At night, the Thompson family-- hanging tiny Kate from her wrists, swung wide over the rock ground, balanced for just a moment, brought back down-- avoids the halos of streetlight. They stick to the ally ways, where the garbage is properly boxed. They want to avoid Valerie, who never swung at her wrists until she was bound to a pole. She sets up at Chestnut and Fairway. They want to avoid Gianna, in all her hispanic lore, and so they skip over the crossing of Magnolia and Pickerton. Serena and Jasmine hold their two-for-one at Seaview and Pine, hands clasped around the light post, teetertottering. The girls hide themselves beneath parkas and fur-lined leather pants, earmuffs, waiting to be unwrapped.
You,re right, Jenna, it's prosy but has great phrases of specificity that you can turn into more contracted syntax:
ReplyDelete"the ground's saturation of leaves"
"suspended in air" instead of "balanced for a moment"
"They" instead of "the girls"
Keep "corners that cross and bend"; "everywhere is downtown"; "waiting to be unwrapped" = awesome language.
I find "tree-dropping' confusing, and "Families" don't usually appear in Thomas Kincaide paintings so suggest you either change the word or add 'cottages' at the end of that sentence.
I think it would be fascinating to read more about Gianna's "Hispanic lore" and perhaps
how one or more of the prostitutes operates when a customer drives or walks up.
Good luck on this one. I think it's a 'doozy'!
I feel at least a little obligated to comment on this’un.
ReplyDeleteLines I think you should keep forevah: “picnic on leaves because that’s all there is,” “tree-droppings,” “hanging tiny Kate from her wrists,” “who never swung from her wrists until she was bound to a pole,” and I agree with Pauline on “waiting to be unwrapped.” Nice.
Here’s where I think there’s some opportunities for more – this is a really interesting concept (go us), one that begs to have some time spent on it. So if you’re going for a free write that’s about not just regular ol’ prostitutes but the New England genre, then what about them being from New England sets them apart from any others? I think the first block approaches that somewhat but doesn’t quite hit the mark.
What kind of earmuffs? What do their parkas look like? In my experience, parkas aren’t very attractive garments, especially for someone whose wares to display is actually her body, so how does that accentuate or de-accentuate? Does it do anything interesting optically? I want more about the girls, too. The “Hispanic lore” bit, I think you could expand on – is there something about Hispanics in the New England area, some tension in that? Also, I like the idea of Valerie on the pole, so I question the image of the two-for-one (which, by the way, is interesting and you should go into more detail about) with the lightpole, since it seems a little too close.
Looking forward to future drafts.
I’m going to be very honest with you. I was super excited to see this draft, I quite literally laughed out loud. With that said, Pauline and MacKenzie both have good points. This draft already produces some instances of awesomeness. Definitely keep everything that Mackenzie suggested in addition to, "everywhere is downtown.” I, like MacKenzie, enjoyed “tree-droppings” because, well, it's funny. I must disagree with Pauline’s suggestion of adding “cottage” to the end. I don’t feel (in my opinion) that it’s necessary. I believe the idea is interesting and the draft lends that they're not really supposed to be there since they’re “cobblestoned in.” It may work better if “in to” was changed to “into.”
ReplyDeleteI, too, think it would be interested to know more about these "working girls." Besides, the draft could get really creative with this portion. I look forward to the next draft and assume I will be seeing it next Monday. (: