Standing Back for a Better View

I'm writing a book review right now (only notes so far), but after I send it away Sunday, I'm going to focus on last tweaks of the manuscript. I found an old list of things to think about from when this book was only half done. I also was trying to get a handle on what this book was at the time:

• about danger as well as death, as in the dead have it easy now?
• a teensy bit of self-mockery? maybe only applied to extremity of feeling?
• when exuberant to the extreme
• when more pierce-y
• if 25, need 23 more (22 if aphoristic works--surely a two-pager)
• meaningful but not instructive
• gesturing toward the unknown
• the "letting go" of control of voice's exuberance is new to book
• the non-lineation is new to book
• the a-sentence is not new but feels newer because no line breaks?
• the going against an end is not new but maybe more pronounced here--closer to non sequitur but not
• more humor?
• some more lyric, some more stuttery within stanza. Is there the same quality of language in each? quality of image? Does it depend on whether poem of condition or poem of incident?
• to make subject matter less threatening become off-hand or jokey
• the devolution of the past
• some swagger-y, some serious
• lots of birds
• a poem about beauty redefined as suggested in "Watching Me" 
• think about if poems have flaw, not commercially but intrinsically