Today at New Graffiti I discussed screw ups and their implications.

When journals slightly screw up...appeared in the New Graffiti Blog, but I've re-posted it below

by timothygageIn a world where titles scream out hooks, outrage and shock, this blog entry is rather passive. It is a bad title for today’s world.  Fox News or CNN might have come up with,  “Lummox Screws Up” or “Who is to Blame for Messing Up a Poem” . Given that,  today I’m going to write about the title of my poem which appears in The Lummox.

       

The Lummox Journal is 235 pages of lummox goodness. I’m always happy to appear in print, even though it is often less exposure than appearing on-line. Though happy, as stated, I’ve got a bitch about something.

When you do nothing to indicate a title, the way it appears below and in the journal,

walking out of the woods

there’s a condom and ten suboxone
in the inside jacket pocket
but I won’t use

instead of this, (title in bold)

walking out of the woods

there’s a condom and ten suboxone
in the inside jacket pocket
but I won’t use

or this, (title in quotes)

“walking out of the woods”

there’s a condom and ten suboxone
in the inside jacket pocket
but I won’t use

it ruins the clever tie-in of the title to the first line. The poem currently looks like it has no title and that the title is my first line. In the rest of the journal, the titles are in bold letters. Using “walking out of the woods” as the  opening line, it creates a rather weak entrance, where I felt what I had intended was rather strong. It also doesn’t help that there is a space after that line followed by a single word line “either” followed by another space.

What can be done about it? Nothing. Zilch. Zero. A proof PDF in advance would have solved this problem.  Unfortunately, it was not and since it’s my work it is overly magnified in my head and my head is a dangerous place to be.

To read the rest of my poem, plus the boldly titled poems from others whom you can find on THIS LIST ,  please purchase, Lummox Number One.  Besides my personal little bitch, the journal is  pretty awesome.