I think it was sometime in 2011 (or 2012) that I wrote a poem titled “Transparent Strangers” about a crush on a woman I met at a conference. As most crushes go, mine went nowhere after a while. Through some strange twist of fate, my first collection of poems was eventually named after this piece. It’s been a long-held belief of mine that in writing a poem I set it free, much like a bird in a cage. “Transparent Strangers” and its mawkish sentiments saw light of day and I pretty much forgot about the poem thereafter. Until now. In February this year, poetry.sg approached me with an intriguing proposition: take an old poem of yours and edit it. For some reason I picked “Transparent Strangers”. Perhaps part of me wanted to know if I still felt anything for the poem (and the crush) after all these years. What emerged from reading “Transparent Strangers” again was a void. The young man who spilled his heart on paper was, for lack of a better word, a stranger. To me. His longings felt distant and foreign. If I were to edit “Transparent Strangers”, I might end up warping the spirit of the piece. It’s almost as if in touching it again I might sully the poem’s naiveté. Some things are better left remembered for what they were, untouched and flawed in all their glory.
Nevertheless, I forged ahead and modified “Transparent Strangers”. Something of the piece did change, and from its bones I constructed an updated version of the original, adding to its frame the flesh and words of a more weary man. Some days I feel old, and this edited version reflects that. The edited version’s titled “Transparent Strangers Again”. If you’d like to read the piece, click here. There’s also a short write-up explaining the creative process behind the edits made.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
News Thoughts Reviews InterviewsArchives
April 2023
Categories |