First Draft to Last Draft

By Kim Moore

Another first draft to last draft post! The poem I’m going to share this time has just been published in the most recent issue of The Poetry Review. I think there’s some really exciting poems in there - a new poem from poet, novelist and my long-suffering line manager Andrew McMillan for starters. And I was excited to see new work from Jacob Polley which really feels as if it is pushing into new directions. I think one of my favourite poems in the issue was “A Slug Eating a Plum in an Espresso Cup” by Padraig Regan, which starts

This open-ended tubular sac 
of four-way-stretch muscle, 
this insistent foot 

goes about its mouth-exploring
over the plum's film-thin
purple-burnished skin 

like a symbol for disease.
Which it's not. 

I like how the grotesque is tipping over into sensuality and back again here, and how it feels as if language is exceeding itself with those runs of hyphenated words. I also like how the poem uses simile to try and make a symbol of the slug and then catches itself doing so and resits that urge to make human meaning out of nature.

Here is my poem, and at the bottom of this post for paid subscribers, I’m going to share the first draft and talk about how to get from some very unpromising notes to a poem!

I’ve put the text underneath but I can’t get it to look like a lovely neat block of prose on here so thought I’d include the photograph of the poem in the magazine as well!

ADVICE FROM MY FAMILY 
KIM MOORE

My mum says don’t walk home in the dark, don’t 
run on your own, don’t do anything on your own. 
My dad says if you listened to your mum, you 
wouldn’t step outside without an armed escort. My 
sister says do you remember that panic alarm we had 
to carry round when we were 17? My mum says 
wasn’t that after the armed robbery at the pub you 
worked at? My sister says no the panic alarm was 
before that, it was because we had to get the bus to 
college. My sister says dad always used to say you 
two don’t need anybody because you’ve got each 
other which I point out is opinion not advice. She 
says what about when he said if you can read, you’ll 
never be bored. Dad says I’ve always told you never 
be a bully, but if someone hits you, hit them harder
and to be a good liar, you need a good memory. My 
mum chips in with make sure your name is on the 
mortgage and never leave your dirty washing in a 
cupboard under the stairs. My dad says I’ve always 
said never drink so much you can’t get yourself 
home. Mum says don’t split the bill on a date, the 
man should pay. In fact, women shouldn’t pay for 
anything. This leads on to her advice about how to 
leave relationships. She says if I ever split up with 
your dad, I’d leave him with one knife, one fork,
one spoon, one plate, one cup. If he wants to 
entertain anybody, he can get his own stuff.

“Advice From My Family” was written during April 2024 for National Poetry Writing Month. During National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo for short, the idea is to write a poem a day. I’ve taken part every year for the past four or five years, with varying degrees of success, although I suppose it depends how you measure success! I think it’s only the last two years that I’ve managed to write a poem every day. Perhaps I will do another post and look at how many poems from each year of NaPoWriMo have actually become “real” poems (and what a “real” poem is, is a whole other area of discussion of course!

Thank you to all of our subscribers for reading along with us, and below if you are a paid subscriber, you’ll find a very, very rough first draft of this poem.