Saturday, August 25, 2007

Blinded to my own eyes

In cobbling together my prose poems (right now I have about 40) into a manuscript, I discovered that no less than 15 of them have the word "eyes" in them, and in no less than 12, they get prominent mention. (e.g. here. And here. In the latter, "eyes" get somewhat prominent, if passing mention.) When does a motif become irritating crutch? Funny thing is, up to now I wasn't even conscious of the motif (therefore, likely, crutch). Now that I've uncovered it, the repetition of "eyes" "eyes" "eyes" is annoying. In some cases, I'll probably change it to "vision", "gaze" or the like. In a phrase like, "your body prone, eyes closed, what are you dreaming?" I could change "eyes closed" to "breathing softly" or the like, an improvement even in originality. Some uses, though, are unalterable. I'll have to spread these out and arrange them in the manuscript so that it does become an appealing motif. Or jettison them altogether. One thing's for sure: if eyes ever come up again in new drafts, I'll be strongly inclined to strike 'em blind.

2 comments:

Pris said...

Hi Brian
I've noticed that trend in my own poems. Thanks for reminding me. I need to exchange some old images/words for new ones, too.

Brian Campbell said...

Thanks to the comments, Pris. I know it's holiday time, but the last few posts I've been feeling like I'm talking to myself.