AUTISM: An Experiment of Poetry Composition

In recent weeks, Nic Sebastian has been publishing at her blog, Very Like a Whale, a series of intriguing interviews with poets and editors about the relationship contemporary authors have with technology in their “capacity as a poet.” Specifically, Sebastian has asked about how the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, iPad, iPod, YouTube, or podcasts are being employed by poets.

As I examined the current informative interview with editor and poet Cati Porter that was posted June 9, I began to consider the possibility of opening online the process for composing and organizing one of my works in progress. At any given time, my office desk displays a number of folders containing typescript pages of ongoing projects in various stages of production: a few manuscripts of new poetry, essays of literary criticism, a gathering of published memoirs, paperwork for an anthology of poems, a selection of film commentaries, etc.

Consequently, I have decided to start an experiment with the material from one folder which holds numerous pieces linked as a sequence of poetry concerning the topic of autism. I have initiated a blog where segments from this work in progress will be available for visitors to read and, if they wish, to offer responses or suggestions. As I state in the introductory project description near the top of the blog:

This blog has been created as an open experiment of poetry composition, perhaps a glimpse at an emerging manuscript as it matures.

I have placed below some of the pages from an isolated venture in one of my typescript loose-leaf folders. The contents here represent portions of an ongoing personal project with a particularly narrow focus intended to eventually develop toward a book-length poem tentatively and simply titled Autism.

The poem will grow as new sections are added. The individual posts are designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections of the long poem.

Readers are asked to regard this piece as a work in progress, a partial draft rather than a finished product (even if a few selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various revisions—edits, emendations, or expansion—may be made to the posts at any time in the future.

Therefore, I invite visitors to become followers of the blog by clicking the link in the sidebar, as well as to follow on Twitter for updates. Indeed, a significant part of this experiment involves a certain amount of transparency that includes the possibility for readers to communicate responses and offer constructive suggestions, both of which I welcome through post comments or e-mail messages.

Also, I advise that the order of the numbered sections is not meant to be at all definitive since the long poem’s sequence will certainly be reorganized at some point as the work in this temporary format starts to resemble a completed manuscript and begins to assume a more formal shape.

I invite anyone interested to visit the blog, and I encourage readers to sign on as followers in order to chart the development of this work in progress.