Ghost Editor

Sleepless at 2:30 a.m. I was flipping through THE NEW YORKER (April 17, 2023, the issue with a sketch of Trump on the cover) when I came across a poem titled, “Kansas, 4 A.M.” by Kim Addonizio. I started to read the poem with one eye open, the best way to read poetry by the way, and was able to condense it from 29 lines to 6 lines without sacrificing, at least to my eye, either the sense of the poem or the underlying sensibility that had guided the poet in its construction.

Childhood, did it ever exist?

A man might be half scorpion, a woman half fish.

The sounds of the world at this late hour sadden you,

then enters the rain, hastening down, the rain that wants

to touch eveything

and almost does.

It’s such a good poem I wish I written it. THE NEW YORKER and Kim Addonizio liked the poem the way it was, but I like my version of ‘Kansas, 4.A.M.” better and will glory in its brilliance for a day or so.

Author’s early morning edits of Kim Addonizio poem, ‘Kansas, 4.P.M.’, The New Yorker, April 17, 2023 edition.