Page 81

By Jack Joseph Smith

If I could write on turns and tables. Sinking not when ren was done. Highlighted by its spread LIE If I could write on turns and tables. Sinking not when ren was done. Highlighted by its so singular of a column spread If I could wright on turns and tables sinking not when ren was done Highlighted by its so singular of a column spread My little brown wings would become black And all that I learned in journal school Would finally make its fame in deportation The Aleutian Tern our seamen's fable White wings and lights blazing near The neat foam against the tarnished silver sky in the black sea of my head And all that I learned in the draftsmen's schools would make its fame in deportation

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page shows a poem in revision, shifting from abstract draft lines into a more vivid seabird-and-seascape image.

What matters here is the movement from mechanical repetition toward sharper imagery. The typed drafts circle around `turns and tables`, but the handwritten revision opens outward into `The Aleutian Tern`, white wings, foam, and tarnished silver sky. It feels like the poem finding its true visual world through revision.

Claude

Three short staves toward a poem about wanting to write on turns and tables. Sinking not when ren was done, highlighted by its singular column spread, brown wings going black, the Aleutian Tern as the seamen's fable, white wings and lights blazing near neat foam against a tarnished silver sky. Draftsmen's-school fame ending in deportation. The book closes its drafts into birds.