| Author | Message | ||
| Laura Ring
Member Username: laura Post Number: 62 Registered: 05-2007 |
Hi Everyone, Does anyone else ever feel this way? You've got an hour or so free, and you think, "well, I could write a new poem, or I could revise one," which is to say: "I could spend a glorious hour allowing myself to be overcome with new images, feel the rush of discovery as I channel the muse" OR "I could cut pieces of my heart out with a splintered awl"... Does revising one's poetry ever get easier? Laura | ||
| LJ Cohen
Moderator Username: ljc Post Number: 7415 Registered: 07-2002 |
ROFL, laura. I may be an odd duck, but I actually like revising. I think I'm a better editor than I am a poet.  BUT I usually need some separation from the piece to be effective in revising it. Sometimes a day or two will do. With other poems, it may be months or longer before I can see it as separate from me. I like to look at revision as "re Vision". Looking at the words in a different way, rather than seeing it as a destructive process. Where I get tripped up is in my fiction. I *love* planning a story and the rush of new writing at the start. Middles. I LOATHE middles. LOL. ljc Once in a Blue Muse Blog LJCohen | ||
| Fred Longworth
Advanced Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 1450 Registered: 05-2006 |
Although I suck as an editor because I get carried away and make MAJOR changes in the person's poem, which inevitably crushes their ego and offends them mightily and causes them to chase me through the town with tar and feathers . . . in every other way I agree with what Lisa said. It's good to have a stack of poems that are "in progress." Place the recent ones on top, so that its easy to append comments, say, from Biofeedback or Creative Visualization, and to make immediate corrections of typos and other obvious stuff. But pull poems off the bottom of the stack for deeper revision. And I cannot stress this point more highly: at the same time you revise a few of your own poems, read a number of other poets' works. Fred | ||
| Laura Ring
Member Username: laura Post Number: 63 Registered: 05-2007 |
Thank you, LJ and Fred, for your advice. I can tell that I'm learning so much by witnessing the process of revision for others (and by participating in giving feedback). Part of it, I think, is that revising a poem involves such a different level of commitment than writing one, if that makes sense. But getting a little distance from the poem first sounds like a good idea. (Now, where's that awl...?) Cheers, Laura |
