Thread by @fireinapasture

Sneak peak no. 7 of *Litany with Wings* (@BccPress): Four takes on a poem. Take 1 (2006): @dialoguejournal publishes my first poem, "Fruit" dialoguejournal.com/articles/fruit/. It was inspired by something the dr told my then-pregnant wife when she went for a checkup after a car accident: /1

"She's like an apple in a water balloon," he said, reassuring us that our gestating daughter (our "fruit") was unharmed by the collision. I took his witness as my starting point and wove a text from his words + the sonogram + the Eden narrative. /2

Take 2 (2010/11): I'm curating work for *Fire in the Pasture* and have sent several poems to Susan Elizabeth Howe because @PeculiarPages says my work should be included, too, but I don't want to decide for myself which poems should make the cut. /3

Susan picks five poems, one of which is a revised version of "Fruit." Among other changes I've made to the poem, I've altered the last stanza: /4

This—

Her tears swell with their fruit,
distilling through Earth's skin
into the flowing blood
of their generations' veins.

—has become this—

Their breath swells with the fruit,
diffusing through Earth's skin
into the pulse
of their generations' veins. /5

Take 3 (2018): I've been tinkering with "Fruit" in preparation for collecting my work in a book. This revision moves the poem toward something less detached, more personal + immediate. So I've shifted the mode of address from third to second person. /6

I submit the revised first section of the poem to @cal_olsen for possible inclusion in his master's thesis project, *antiBODY: An Online Anthology of Poetry & Medicine.* He publishes the updated poem. scalar.usc.edu/works/health-h… @anvcscalar /7

Take 4 (2021): I'm making another pass through *Litany with Wings.* @BccPress says they'd like to publish the book, but the pandemic has delayed our plans. I take the opportunity to push hard on the collection's poems + overall structure. /8

I begin cutting words, clipping lines, rethinking repeated images, overhauling the structure of several poems. I cut pieces that don't resonate anymore + make space in the collection for some new stuff. (I'll pause to thank @TitaniaYellow for her incisive feedback here.) /9

Along the way, I revamp "Fruit" again, making it the first scene in a diptych that speaks to a former self, maybe the 2006 version of Tyler. This is the version you'll read when the book releases. Just know the poem got here—as did the book, as did I—through many iterations. /end