A Few Words on Revision

Hay bales in the pasture. 

There seems to be a common misconception that because poetry is often short, it’s easy. 

It’s not. 

Good poetry takes work, and part of the work is revision. You may get lucky, and create a poem that needs little tightening up or tidying, but those poems are rare exceptions rather than the rule. A lot of people say, “What ever comes out of my head, onto the paper, that’s it. It’s a poem.” The feeling is that it either works, or it doesn’t work, either way the implication is that further revision is unnecessary or a waste of time. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Most novelists wouldn’t let their first draft see the light of day, why is it acceptable for poetry? It makes poetry seem like the ugly stepchild of writing, not worthy of the love and attention given to longer works. Raw emotion puked onto the page isn’t enjoyable for anyone. Is it the excitement of creation – the instant gratification- that attracts the non-revisionist? Or the fear of taking a hard, critical look at the writing? Why not make the poem be all it can be, instead of kicking it to the curb right after it’s born? 

Revision is hard, it’s unpleasant, and it makes us doubt and question. Being honest with your poetry is the toughest thing you’ll do. If you can’t critically evaluate what you’ve written, how are you going to take the criticisms of others once your poem is let loose in the big, bad world? And they will criticize. Poetry can be written for oneself, but really, what is the point? You know your truths. You want to share/inflict them on others, or else you wouldn’t put them down on paper. Good poems should leave your senses bruised and battered, and at the same time, awed. They should inspire you in some way – as writer, as reader, as human being.

The fear of revision often comes from the fear of change. Changing even one line of your poem can mean altering its intent and message. Perhaps it’s meant to change. Maybe what you meant to say slipped out, but not in the manner you intended. Maybe you shoehorned the poem into a form it’s uncomfortable with. Is the real, true intent of the poem lying somewhere beneath the surface? You won’t know unless you dig down and pry away all the extraneous dreck that creeps into poetry in the name of ‘art’. If you want people to see the nuggets of truth, you need to scrape off the surface dirt and let it shine on its own. 

Poetry can be one of the most painful writing processes in terms of procedure. You can hide the truths in a novel length work, sneak up on them, and approach them obliquely. Even with short stories the approach is more leisurely. Due to its sparse nature, poetry is pretty much a head-on collision. If you can’t stare down the fierce-eyed headlight of the poetry train, get off the tracks. Write something else. You’ll be doing yourself and others a kindness. Poetry is not for the transient, the dabbler, the weak of purpose, and those with timid heart. It may sound harsh, and it’s meant to. If you don’t want to work at writing it, I don’t want to read it.

“So although the goal is universality, the poem’s arena of achievement is necessarily constricted and the poet’s attitude one of precarious transparency. Good poetry thus produced is cleansed of dross, of falsehood, and everything extraneous to the representation of the poet’s primary subject, inevitably an affirmation to the ideals in question. “Good” applied to poetry in this sense points to its moral significance, which coordinates the poet’s psychological need with an aesthetic aim in the interest of creations that exceed a narrow construct of either. The cure of poetry is the achievement of the poem’s rescue from an accumulation of prosaic impulses that stanch the spring of feeling and idea.”

Kinzie, Mary. The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose: Moral Essays on the Poet's Calling. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1993.

*This essay is a reprint of one of my previous essays.

Strengthening Poetry – Revisiting Revision

There seems to be a common misconception that because poetry is often short, it’s easy.

It’s not.

Good poetry takes work, and part of the work is revision. You may get lucky, and create a poem that needs little tightening up or tidying, but those poems are rare exceptions rather than the rule. A lot of people say, “What ever comes out of my head, onto the paper, that’s it. It’s a poem.” The feeling is that it either works, or it doesn’t work, either way the implication is that further revision is unnecessary or a waste of time.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Most novelists wouldn’t let their first draft see the light of day, why is it acceptable for poetry? It makes poetry seem like the ugly stepchild of writing, not worthy of the love and attention given to longer works. Raw emotion puked onto the page isn’t enjoyable for anyone. Is it the excitement of creation – the instant gratification- that attracts the non-revisionist? Or the fear of taking a hard, critical look at the writing? Why not make the poem be all it can be, instead of kicking it to the curb right after it’s born?

Revision is hard, it’s unpleasant, and it makes us doubt and question. Being honest with your poetry is the toughest thing you’ll do. If you can’t critically evaluate what you’ve written, how are you going to take the criticisms of others once your poem is let loose in the big, bad world? And they will criticize. Poetry can be written for oneself, but really, what is the point? You know your truths. You want to share/inflict them on others, or else you wouldn’t put them down on paper. Good poems should leave your senses bruised and battered, and at the same time, awed. They should inspire you in some way – as writer, as reader, as human being.

The fear of revision often comes from the fear of change. Changing even one line of your poem can mean altering its intent and message. Perhaps it’s meant to change. Maybe what you meant to say slipped out, but not in the manner you intended. Maybe you shoehorned the poem into a form it’s uncomfortable with. Is the real, true intent of the poem lying somewhere beneath the surface? You won’t know unless you dig down and pry away all the extraneous dreck that creeps into poetry in the name of ‘art’. If you want people to see the nuggets of truth, you need to scrape off the surface dirt and let it shine on its own.

Poetry can be one of the most painful writing processes in terms of procedure. You can hide the truths in a novel length work, sneak up on them, and approach them obliquely. Even with short stories the approach is more leisurely. Due to its sparse nature, poetry is pretty much a head-on collision. If you can’t stare down the fierce-eyed headlight of the poetry train, get off the tracks. Write something else. You’ll be doing yourself and others a kindness. Poetry is not for the transient, the dabbler, the weak of purpose, and those with timid heart. It may sound harsh, and it’s meant to. If you don’t want to work at writing it, I don’t want to read it.

“So although the goal is universality, the poem’s arena of achievement is necessarily constricted and the poet’s attitude one of precarious transparency. Good poetry thus produced is cleansed of dross, of falsehood, and everything extraneous to the representation of the poet’s primary subject, inevitably an affirmation to the ideals in question. “Good” applied to poetry in this sense points to its moral significance, which coordinates the poet’s psychological need with an aesthetic aim in the interest of creations that exceed a narrow construct of either. The cure of poetry is the achievement of the poem’s rescue from an accumulation of prosaic impulses that stanch the spring of feeling and idea.”

Kinzie, Mary. The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose: Moral Essays on the Poet's Calling.
Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1993.

Telling Little Stories - Revising Poetry, Part II

Now it’s time for another pass through your poem, the final pass if you’re confident, one of many final passes if you’re an incessant tinkerer. (Not that I would know anything about that ….) If you find yourself skimming through the poem, or feel sick of it, put the poem away and revise another day. The object is to look at it with fresh eyes, as if you flipped open a magazine and saw it for the first time.

These steps can be integrated with Part One revisions, or done separately, depending on how you work best. Examine your word choices. Are they appropriate for the poem? Is there another word that conveys your overall idea better? Make every word in your poem pull its weight - use strong verbs. Is your poem predictable? Part of the charm of poetry is a work turning your expectations sideways, or even upside down. If I know how it’s going to end, why should I read further? On the other hand, too much disassociation between reader and poem is what makes the audience believe poetry is only for ‘snobs’ and the literati. Reader accessibility is important. Who is your target audience?

Just like a novel, your poem tells a story. How it tells the story is up to you. Is it a mystery, a thriller, a romance? Does your language reflect your poem/story? Are your lines and stanzas lyrical, short and to the point, or dense and chewy? Don’t forget about pacing. You don’t want your reader skimming over the stanzas to get to the end. Take them along for the ride, let them enjoy the trip. Does your poem shoot the rapids, or canoe along the shore?

Can you reorder the poem to make it more exciting? Will shifting stanzas change the meaning of the poem? Maybe changing the meaning leads you in a direction you never would have considered otherwise. How much poem can you remove and still have it make sense? How much poem can you add, and still maintain tension? Change stanzas in a poem, lines in a stanza, words in a line. Open yourself to the possibilities.

The thought to keep in mind through all revisions – What am I trying to say here?

Distance yourself from your work. Step back, remove the rose-tinted glasses, and shine a halogen spotlight on the poem. Sometimes when we’re too close to a subject, our attempts to write a poem about it come off as syrupy or maudlin. Can you remove yourself, the “I”, from the poem and still tell the story? Should the poem about a relative’s fight with cancer be told from your POV, the relative’s, from that of a nurse, or a delivery person passing down the hall outside the chemotherapy rooms? Each time you switch perspectives, you open up new possibilities for telling the poem/story. Maybe your love life crashed and burned for the fifteenth time, but no one really wants another poem that whines about how unlucky in love you are. Make the experience something your audience can relate to - Everyone’s been there - But - How do you approach the subject in a fresh way? What’s general about your experience as well as unique? Try humor. Find the universals and use them to draw your readers in.

Remember - It’s Not About You.

Research – it’s not just for novels. A false fact will make the reader uncomfortable at best, at worst? A blunder and they may never read your work again. You’ve lost credibility. Even if the reader doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong, most people have an innate bullshit detector that lets them know when a writer didn’t do his or her homework. The more ambitious reader will do the research you should have done on the subject – then rub your face in it. Publicly. Put forth your best effort with a poem, your readers will appreciate it. You may never hear the acknowledgment, then again, you might. I still hear from people about a poem on Gorgonzola cheese I read at a festival four years ago. I get accosted in the aisles at Wal-Mart. “Aren’t you the cheese poem lady?” Not necessarily the title I wanted, but the poem obviously struck a chord. I had one person tell me they even went out and tried Gorgonzola cheese thanks to my poem. Another wanted to know if I had any more ‘funny food’ poems. If I had to choose between being known for Shakespearian sonnets on metaphysics, or weird food poems … I’ll take weird food poems any day. It makes for interesting conversations.

When revising, trust your reader to be intelligent. You don’t need to spell out every detail. Don’t mediate between the reader and your poem. You won’t be there to interpret when the reader flips open a book and finds your poem. Your work has to stand on its own.

When is a poem finished? That’s a tough call. There comes a time when you have to back away from the poem and say, “That’s it. I’m done.” Leave it; stick it into your ‘finished’ folder, and move on to the next. I tend to write poems in batches, and revise in batches. Once you get your mind into revision mode, it goes easier. When I’m ready to submit, I open the poem and give it a once over, to make sure I didn’t overlook anything, or misspell a word. Since I’m not in ‘revision’ mode, I can resist the urge to tinker yet again. Usually ....

It’s a never ending process. I have poems in print I’ve revised yet again. I want my best work out in the world. There are poems from years ago I cringe at, but also there are old poems with a snippet of something good hidden in their clumsy verse. I steal the good and rework the idea. (Can you steal from yourself??) We all learn more tools and tricks as we gain experience *coughs* - get older - so apply that knowledge to your poems. You readers will thank you for it.

Self-Inflicted Wounds - Revising Poetry, Part I

You’ve got a notebook (computer) full of finished poems and wonder "What comes next?". Do you slap the verse in an envelope and rush off to the post office to submit them far and wide? Or do you carefully revise your work, and create the strongest poems possible?

I lean toward revision, more so now that I know the depth of my not knowing. It’s a rare poem that can make the leap from thought to publication without an important stop in between. Poems benefit from being changed, rearranged, and recreated. Almost every poem can be tightened. We can make a poem better, stronger, faster. But remember to save your first draft, because sometimes an overzealous poet can revise the life right out of a poem. It’s a fine line, and the more you practice tightening your words, the easier it is to know where the boundary between ‘mostly finished’, and ‘dead horse’ lie.

Most poems DO benefit immensely from a cooling off, or waiting period. This can be as little as a day, or as long as years. I still have poem pieces I wrote in 1983, patiently waiting for the right moment to step into the spotlight. Poetry is a lot like cooking – some poems need a quick stir-fry, others benefit from a long simmer, preferably in wine.

Revision is more in-depth than rearranging line and stanza breaks, or consulting a thesaurus for word replacement. Revision means you have to be cruel sometimes - ax a favorite line, ar brilliant image that just doesn’t work with THIS poem. Hence the cooling off period. You need to examine your poem with a critical eye, a thing that’s difficult to do when you are still enthralled with your words. Put the poem in a hermetically sealed box until its pitiful cries for love fade away.

Work from the assumption that what you really meant to say in the poem is contained somewhere within that first draft. You are an archeologist, intent on coaxing treasure from dirt piles. Revision should cleanse and fine tune your poem until it is close to the trigger that cause you to slam on the brakes, pull to the side of the road, and scribble furiously on a taco stained napkin.

First revision pass through your poem, remove the extraneous. You know what it is. The excessive thens and buts and ands dragging your piece down, distracting from the meat of your work. The words are unnecessary. Get rid of them. Then rework the lines word removal made off kilter. This will be an ongoing job, rewriting to smooth over what you took away. The upside is rewriting can make the poem better. Tighter. Use strong words at the ends of lines. Like a properly made bed, you should be able to bounce a quarter off the surface.

Study your poem. Which lines, images, words are stronger, which convey the emotion you want to carry to the reader? Which attached themselves as carry-on baggage? If your poem is 4 stanzas long, is there a weak stanza, one not pulling its weight? Maybe the poem would benefit from a stanza-ectomy. On the flip side, perhaps you’re shortchanging yourself, and the poem needs more room to breathe, to tell its story. Do you have too many ideas going on? Unless it’s an epic, generation spanning ballad, most poems direct us toward a moment in time, the awareness of an experience, the illustration of a slice of a life.

You’ve completed your first pass through the poem, and survived. Unnecessary words were eliminated, stanzas were examined for flab, ideas were weighted and measured.

Now comes the hard part, walking the tightrope between ‘almost there’, and ‘finished enough’.

PART II: Telling Little Stories