Is anyone else terrified of revising? Even on the poems that I have comments on from Workshop, I am still afraid of revising. I look at the comments and I know that I should start there, but I am unsure of how to revise a poem without ruining it. How do you know what to revise? How do you know when you have revised enough? I know that revision will make my poems better, but that does not make me any less afraid.
Revision is the hardest part of any writing. Revision is also the most important part of any writing process. I mean you learn a lot about poetry and all of its implications when you revise a poem. When you write a first draft of a poem you are only writing a stream of consciousness, but when you revise you are able to focus more on the little details of poetry. Even though I am terrified of revising, I look forward to learning more about poetry and myself through the revision process.
I would suggest taking a moment and clearing your head. I would start with the most common suggestion given by everyone, the one thing everyone may have said.
ReplyDeleteFor instance if you need to have more story, simply write a huge world, almost a screen play in your mind. Then with the poem it is simply adding a few well chosen words to convey your plot.
If it is more concrete detail, maybe go overboard with it. Write something totally over the top, just to get started. That's what I did for one of my poems, I went back to when I broke up with my ex. You take all your feelings and then just write them until its almost embarrassing. Yet makes you laugh at the same time, since its so extreme. Then after you can go back through and remove some of the more over the top qualities.
An exercise I had in one of my other classes was to write a story terribly. Make it over the top, full of ridiculous language, take it to the extreme. One student wrote a story in the language of the character Ron Burgandy. It was awful and hysterical all rolled into one.
So have fun with it, let loose, so then when you go back through and skim out some of the material it won't seem like such a daunting task.
It sometimes help to have many versions of the same poem. Having many versions can enable you to keep alot of the lines you like and are unsure of while alos letting them go.
ReplyDeleteTime is also a key fator. Intially upon writing a poem emotionally you're still rather attatched. letting a poem breathe for a bit then coming back usually generates a better understanding from the change in perspective.
Reguardless of suggestions I would follow my instinct. No one can truly grasp your vision of your work. If you can somehow figure out what that is i'm sure you'll be fine.
Trust me you are certainly not the only one who is afraid to revise a poem. I am always afraid that after I revise a poem it will not be as good as it was originally. When you revise a poem you have a tendency to over think the poem which could cause the poem to sound less realistic. It is always a scary thing to change something that you wrote just like it is hard to make everyone else understand where you are trying to go with a poem. The best thing you can do is to just take a deep breath, try to clear your head and dive in.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the revision process is going to be difficult. I am not looking forward to revising some of my poems, especially the ones we did in workshop. I thought everyones comments were very helpful but it's hard to take someone else's comments and ideas to transform your own work. I think the one thing that is going to be hardest for me is stepping outside my box to view the thoughts of others to improve my work. I get very stuck in my own way of thinking and even though I know I need to improve some aspects of my poems I also feel I really want to keep them as well so it's a hard decision for sure. I'm just afraid of starting the revisions and then the poem is going to be changed completely from the originals. It's going to take a lot of time and thought!
ReplyDelete