“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” —T.S. Eliot
What is revision?
Revision is the process of editing and improving a piece of writing. It can involve changing the text’s structure, content, style, and organization. Revision is essential in writing, as it can help make writing more effective and clearer.
Why revise?
When it comes to poetry, revision is key. No matter how great your poem is in its first draft, there’s always room for improvement. Revision allows you to fine-tune your poem and make it the best it can be.
There are a few things to keep in mind when revising your poem. First, read your poem out loud. This will help you catch any errors or awkward phrasing. Then, take a step back and look at the overall structure of your poem. Is there anything you can add or remove to make it more effective?
Finally, pay attention to the details – the words you choose and how you arrange them on the page. A well-chosen word can make all the difference in a poem. And arranging your words carefully can create powerful effects that enhance the meaning of your words.
What to look for when revising?
When it comes time to revise your poetry, there are a few key things to look for. First, check the overall structure of your poem. Does it have a clear beginning, middle, and end? If not, consider revising the order of your lines or adding new transitions.
Next, take a closer look at your choice of words. Are they precise and evocative? If not, try swapping them out for more accurate or vivid alternatives. Also, be sure to check for any spelling or grammatical errors.
Finally, ask yourself if your poem’s overall tone and mood are what you intended. If not, see if there are any changes you can make to achieve the desired effect. When you write poetry, here are a few poetic elements to finesse the editing process:
- Shaping your poem: line breaks, stanzas, etc.
- Sound and rhythm: making your words sing
- Images and symbols: creating visuals with language
- Truth and emotion: writing from the heart
Shaping your poem: line breaks, stanzas, and pacing.
When it comes to shaping your poem, there are three main aspects you need to take into account: line breaks, stanzas, and pacing. All these elements play a role in how your poem will be read and interpreted by your audience, so it’s essential to choose wisely.
Line breaks can create a sense of rhythm or emphasize a specific syllable. They can also be used to create visual interest on the page. Stanzas can be used to group related thoughts together or to develop a sense of pause. And finally, pacing refers to the overall speed at which your poem is read. It can be fast-paced and energetic or slow and reflective.
Experimenting is the best way to determine which line breaks, stanzas, and pacing will work best for your poem.
Sound and rhythm: making your words sing
As a poet, you know the importance of sound and rhythm in your work. By now, you’ve probably developed a good ear for what sounds right in your poems. But what if you need help with how to make your words sing?
Here are a few tips to help you revise your poem for sound and rhythm:
- Read your poem aloud. This is the best way to hear how the words sound together. As you read, pay attention to how the words flow and their rhythms.
- Listen for areas where the rhythm breaks down or sounds choppy. These are areas that you’ll want to revise.
- Experiment with different ways of saying things. Try changing up the order of words or substituting other words altogether. See how these changes affect the sound and rhythm of your poem.
- When you are satisfied with the sound and rhythm of your poem, read it aloud. Often, the way you hear a poem the second time differs from the first. You may see something that needs to be changed or that you missed the first time.
Images and symbols: creating visuals with language
Images and symbols are an integral part of the poetry writing process. Poets can evoke emotion and create meaning in their work by creating visuals with language.
For example, by using sensory images, poets can give readers a vivid picture of what they are experiencing. Using symbols, poets can add depth and layers of meaning from abstract imagery into concrete words.
Both images and symbols are powerful tools that help poets create beautiful and moving poems. By carefully crafting their words, poets can create visuals that will stay with readers long after reading.
Truth and emotion: writing from the heart
When writing, the heart and emotions play a big role. For some, writing is all about getting their feelings out there and putting them down on paper. It’s a way to express themselves and get everything off their chest. And for others, writing is more about the joy and happiness that comes with it. But no matter your reason for writing, it will only be as effective if you’re honest with your emotions.
If you want to write from the heart, you must be truthful with your emotions. Don’t hold back, and don’t try to sugarcoat anything. The more honest you are, the more impactful your writing will be. It might be difficult at first, but once you start, the words will start flowing out of you. Writing poetry from the soul will draw out a deeper meaning each time you write a poem.
With these things in mind, you should be able to revise your poem in a way that makes it more effective and impactful.
Example
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” —Rita Dove
Phase I
Once you have the poem’s idea, free write some content, identify its theme, curate a word list, poetic form (free verse), and the structure (narrative poem) in the way it will be told; now it’s time to add more details about the poem. The best way to describe a poem is to approach it like a blurb that captures its essence, helps you comprehend it from the reader’s point of view, and clarifies your thoughts for phase II writing.
The poem, A Great Loss I, is in The Cool and Warmth of Hearts. From the poem’s summary, the story: in medias res – “something tragic happens between two lovers when the speaker does not find his lover at his bedside. The speaker does not see his lover and cannot remember why she left him alone when he woke up. So he worries that this concern will draw unnecessary attention and suspicion. His worry and reason for not being at his side make him depressed. His thoughts spiral out of control into deeper misery and hopelessness as each minute devours him.”
Phase II
You will transform your free writing into a poetic form through its style and elements. This step will be chaotic and playful as you experiment with word arrangement, removal of words or phrases, swapping similar words, line breaks, and whether to use end-stops or enjambed lines.
In continuation of phase I, A Great Loss I, the original version of this poem, sometime written a decade or more ago, started out with this piece:
The one I love has vanished without a trace, as if she was banished beyond the universe; now my heart feels misplaced without her embrace as it fed me with warmth, never knowing when my broken heart is ever going to be replaced.
No one would never know how I felt inside, even though the impression on my face may show, and as my intentions let’s go, they may vision my action, above all they never knew how much I love her, as I endure her pondering welt, I tried to erase the pain she flown into me, but I cannot escape. She had lied to be with me forever, why? Now I wanna die, never having memories of her.
My mind is so torn, I wish I had never been born, now I drift to another world of complete blackness and lost composure, therefore I had nothing to compete with, so I shift into sleep and am unsure to wake from here.
Now I’m fading away. Who’s going to console my soul? Where would my heart depart off to, as this question stays hiding in Jose, I slowly laid into my eternal rest, my spirit would be nocturnal, as I explored for more requests to replenish my form just to see the one I love again?
I’ll always remember a day in September, October, November, and even December for those the season we shared most, for giving a reason to say I dearly loved her, and even though my words are few, but my heart will always be true.
And the poem developed into a version from prose to free verse:
The one I love has vanished without a trace,
Banished beyond this universe,
I am in a state of distraught,
Unsure how to carry on,
The warmth at my bedside is misplaced,
Never knowing when the shattered glass will ever get replaced.
No one,
Can know; she is
Gone.
At first, they would sympathize,
Then involve the police,
They will drown me with questions,
Not long they will mark me as a suspect,
In no time, they will exercise my rights,
Soon I’ll feel the neighbors menacing eyes,
It will drive me into further depression,
The onset impression,
Gone from their faces,
I cannot alarm others with this grim situation,
In good intentions it’s best to let go, and
Not involve others,
Let them envision my action,
With suspicion,
I’ll do what’s right,
I’ll search the high-heavens,
I’ll endure the savanna smoldering welt,
I can’t seem to put aside the loss,
“Why the hell did she not tell me how she felt!”
She lied to be at my side, why!?
Now I wish to die,
Dread, should I ruminate her kittenish face,
Now the house has an empty space.
My mind is so torn,
I wish I had never been born,
Charon, here is a coin,
Ferry us into the void,
Therefore, my atoms are not reanimated,
For another poor soul is jaded,
With my troubling baggage.
Throw me at the sea to float in an endless drift,
So I’ll shift into slumber and never wake from this tumble sea-drift.
I’m fading away,
Who will console my soul?
Where does the heart depart,
A raised question but no one answers,
I slouch to lay my head into eternal rest,
My spirit wanders into the nocturnal forest,
Can you take up my request to replenish my form,
Before the storm, sets in?
Leafs changing hue in September,
Temperature lowers in October,
Leafs brown in November,
And temperature plummets in December,
This will be a long winter,
They often cite seasons as a sign of hope,
Much into Spring the ground still covered in snow,
For reasons unknown,
Scientist baffled by the phenomenon,
Theologians shouting Armageddon,
Drifting in my blanket snow mound cover,
Few words,
Humming along,
As the cold winter fridges on.
After that, I felt confident with the form, rhyme scheme, line-break, end-stopped line, enjambment, and diction I chose. I was ready for phase three—the many revisions I would undertake.
Phase III
In this phase, you will continue to play and arrange words and more with scrutiny while reading aloud to listen to its meter and discover components that best represent it. The key is to return to a poem you’ve written with fresh eyes and take on an editor’s perspective rather than seeing it as your creation you kept close at heart. Take a break from it and give yourself some time before engaging with it again. In the interim, write other poems, watch a movie, or play a video game:
- Continue finding the best words.
- Refinery imagery
- Get intimate with figurative language, literary devices, and poetic elements.
- Listen to the pacing of lines with punctuation.
- Is the poem’s tone set in the right mood?
- Read Out Loud! Line by line and the entire poem with each revision.
The difficulty in the revision phase is knowing when a poem is done—right up to the few weeks before my book launch, I still made changes. I would clean up elements like plot, scenes, and character development in a novel or short story. However, poetic visual language makes it harder to discern what’s final! That’s the nature of writing poems. It gets better but hardly ever easier, and many great poems took years or after the poet’s death to see the light of day. Ultimately, just pay careful attention to how the poem progresses. (you can always release the 2nd edition as you get better with the craft).
“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” —Paul Valéry
In continuation of phase II, I read the poem aloud several times, listening carefully to its meters, pace, homonyms, homophones, and tone. I want to point out both rhyme scheme and homonyms/homophones—in the former, the best way to determine if an end rhyme sounds forced is by reading aloud and listening for awkwardness in speech, then rewriting it until it sounds natural or removing it.
As for the latter homonyms/homophones, having a trusty dictionary and etymology source will help ensure you’re using grammatically correct words (this website is great for identifying common errors with words). After several reading-aloud sessions, I stepped back. I used to take time apart to come back and see new perspectives and apply any inspirations I discovered until I reached the final free verse poem published in the book, The Cool and Warmth of Hearts.
The one I love has vanished without a trace,
Banished beyond this universe,
I am in a state of distraught,
Unsure how to carry on,
The warmth at my bedside is misplaced,
Never knowing when the shattered glass will ever get replaced.
No one,
Can know; she is
Gone.
At first, they would sympathize,
Then involve the police,
They will drown me with questions,
Not long they will mark me as a suspect,
In no time, they will exercise my rights,
Soon I’ll feel the neighbors menacing eyes,
It will drive me into further depression,
The onset impression,
Gone from their faces,
I cannot alarm others with this grim situation,
In good intentions it’s best to let go, and
Not involve others,
Let them envision my action,
With suspicion,
I’ll do what’s right,
I’ll search the high-heavens,
I’ll endure the savanna smoldering welt,
I can’t seem to put aside the loss,
“Why the fuck did, she not tells me how she felt.”
She lied to be at my side, why!?
Now I wish to die,
Dread, should I ruminate her kittenish face,
Now the house has an empty space.
My mind is so torn,
I wish I had never been born,
Charon, here is a coin,
Ferry us into the void,
Therefore, my atoms are not reanimated,
For another poor soul is jaded,
With my troubling baggage.
Throw me at the sea to float in an endless drift,
So I’ll shift into slumber and never wake from this tumble sea-drift.
I’m fading away,
Who will console my soul?
Where does the heart depart,
A raised question but no one answers,
I slouch to lay my head into eternal rest,
My spirit wanders into the nocturnal forest,
Can you take up my request to replenish my form,
Before the storm, sets in?
Leafs changing hue in September,
Temperature lowers in October,
Leafs brown in November,
And temperature plummets in December,
This will be a long winter,
They often cite seasons as a sign of hope,
Much into Spring the ground still covered in snow,
For reasons unknown,
Scientist baffled by the phenomenon,
Theologians shouting Armageddon,
Drifting in my blanket snow mound cover,
Few words,
Humming along,
As the cold winter fridges on.
Process with Examples
If you’re someone who loves to read my entire poetry writing process with examples, then you can check out my free download, where I provide the following:
- I provide the entire poetry writing process with an example poem published in my book, The Cool and Warmth of Hearts, from start to finish.
- I provide this in several formats for free, such as a PDF and JPG with an infographic.
- Lastly, the Google Doc template I use for every poem can be downloaded in other formats, e.g., .docx, .odt, and more.
Here is the link to it, and I hope you enjoy it! Thanks—Poetry Writing Process.
The Gist
Revision is an essential step in writing poetry. It allows poets to reflect on their work and make changes to improve their poems. Revision can be complex, but it is essential to creating a successful poem. By revising their work, poets can ensure they are the best they can be. Good poetry happens in the editing process.
“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe and helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.” —Dylan Thomas
From one poet to the next, in your lifetime, you will grow as long as you’re open to life and inner wisdom. As a writer, author, and poet, you will transcend your former self by looking forward to tomorrow and holding more potential than yesterday. The best thing someone can do is to set a deadline for publication to free themselves from the bonds of perfectionism and let go of the poems for the world to read. In your next writing project, you can pause and reflect by revisiting old work and see how much you have grown and—how much your work has grown and instilled value in readers’ lives.
