Blank Gun Silencer - No. 7 - 1993: A Tree, A Road, A Toenail

[Pogue Mahone]

A new addition to the database, but a poem that was probably tampered with...

 

[mjp]

It was in Sifting Through the Madness, so there's no "probably." We have 75 manuscripts from Sifting, all 75 were rewritten by Martin.

 

[Alecto]

I just came here in order to find out what "Blank Gun Silencer" is... I found a few references online about it while I was looking for poems like "Writing" or "Go All the Way", but I need to know more.
Thank you

 

[ShermanBaker]

“Blatant tonality” sounds like Bukowski. He could be awkward when it came to “big words”. Of course, “tonality” is not the sort of word he would ever use in conversation, so is this the work of the Christian Scientist?

I count about five adverbs linked to “laughing”. Is this Martinizing? There are no swear words. A few references to drinking, none to drunkenness.

I suppose I could look up the poem in the database. (Five minutes later.) The database doesn’t say anything about the manuscript being altered/edited/bowdlerized.

 

[Hannah]

is this the work of the Christian Scientist? [...] Is this Martinizing?

Anything in Blank Gun Silencer would be direct from the manuscript.

The same poem(s) in Sifting would be Martin's handiwork.