Starting a poetry blog has pushed me to write a lot more, but now that I write so much and some people actually read my poems, I'd like to start editing them. I realize a lot of it is probably on a work-by-work basis, but do you have any suggestions for editing poetry in general? Adore your work. Thank you.
(SMFH. To me, it’s crazy that you’d turn yourself anon for asking such a wonderful and relevant question, and, yeah, I know what you mean. When I started getting followers, the first thing that came through my mind is: some people actually like reading my shit, wow.)
Yeah, you are right—the amount of time and effort when editing really depends on the poem/work itself. However, there is always more room for improvement.Even after you feel that the poem has reached its natural ending, there’d always be more room for expansion and trimming, until you reach something that’s cohesive and compelling. And only you can sense this balance. Having a sense is extremely important—arguably more important than being skilled at what you do.
Of course, poetry is about beauty, and cohesion is what’s structuring the chaos of emotions and context into something beautiful.
To be honest, though, I’m not the best person to ask about editing technicalities (grammar, syntax, conjugation, etc…). In terms of form, what I consider to be vital is to have an inherent sense of the tone and the voice of your narrative. A fundamental aspect of editing is that you want to improve your poem. However, I think that many misappropriate this notion, in that they consider ‘improvement’ as trying to make the poem closer to their authorial vision.
This restricts the editing process in most cases. What’s important for a poem isn’t really for it to stay truthful to your imagination during the editing process, but that it begins to breathe a life of its own. This seems abstract, but it’s really just following the narrative flow and letting yourself go by writing words that don’t seem to fit together—until they hopefully do. Reimagining the poem is really good, too.
Essentially, you need to distance yourself from the process—acknowledge your imagination but remain callous if the end-work does not seem to fit well. You’re primarily writing for yourself, but when you post this on Tumblr, you’re basically welcoming others to read your works, too. Editing definitely becomes easier and enjoyable to do when you start to loosen up and let the poem reedit itself, and soon patterns will just emerge by themselves.
Click on the links :P. They open in a new tab.
I posted three versions of To kill my mother on Tumblr, and here is the first version, which I erased in favour of the second one. I posted the third and final version yesterday. Anyway, here’s the first version:
My mother died in our farm after three sleepless years of trying to conquer my father’s love, her body on the ploughed, bosomy earth after being blown over by a violent slipstream—her skin and hair licked yellow by the sun and her nails filled with soil. Even her legs had been firmly rooted, the soles of her feet teared open. Her lips were red, the underside chewed open, to relieve the rumble and stings of the bees. Through her death, I felt the coming of age upon me— the hour of true ripening, as if my menstruation blood wasn’t enough. While my father was out, selling his produce, for days, I gazed at her through the kitchen window, waiting for her corpse to decompose or be scavenged by the pests underneath. When it rained, her blood seeped into the soil, turning the ground around her into vermillion. Even through the foggy condensation she emanated across the fields, hollowing the drab grayness of a rainy night, her light so desirable, sharp as a cut, that I stared breathlessly until moss grew on my palms pressed tightly against the wet walls of wood. He came back at a predawn— his silhouette stenciled in the shadow of the farm— that slicing moment between morning and night. The crisp sound of his steps—I missed his sounds—his hisses and shouts, while planting dead bugs and birds—neither his love nor the half-phrased apologies he took from the mailbox and posed crumpled on the table like garlic skin. I could care less if he had a woman or another family in the city—the empty vastness enough for me. After showing him her corpse, we ploughed my mother’s pit, until the midday seeded a sunburn across my back. I didn’t get my mother’s resistance to the elements, and I wonderered how I was birthed by her—I preferred the taste of roots and barks, while she survived out of soil and sunlight. After burying her, I uncoated myself, skinning the sun off my body. I waited for her to grow and fruit the sun, her heart heavily shelled and sharp-faced. I plucked off the labours of harvest that took three years to grow, peeling away her yellow skin to consume the unrequited love, biting its seedy flesh with seedy needs and running my tongue along her contours, her essence sticky on my teeth.
As you may see, the final one is a lot shorter than the other two, basically completely altering the maximalist trend into an almost minimalist one. Of course, this wasn’t a simple process of removing and rearranging stanzas, but by writing a lot, I managed to distinguish which parts were relevant and powerful, to my own tastes, and which parts were redundant. Took a shot of nasty vodka for every unnecessarily floral bit (no pun intended :P). I criticised and tore apart the poem by persuading myself how each verse was stupid and made sure that I underlined the bits that were stupidly vague. Cut down unnecessary repetition like carbs. I strived for subtlety. I made sure that the modifiers weren’t excessive. I looked for some words that didn’t fit or could be replace with other words that had more effect. I replaced weak verbs for the same reason and to ground the imagery. I also rearranged some lines.
While the general magic realist tone and plot of the poem remained the same throughout, its vision was altered in the process, and that’s not a bad thing.
Actually, even when a poem changes by itself, it’s done according to your own tastes. Trust your guttural instincts, and unless you’re experimenting, know to stick to your style in order to find ways to make it more flexible and dramatic. Hell, to be honest, I actually can’t write a realist story even if I try. Madame Carface Ducharme basically shows how I can’t write a realistic poem centred on a court case.
Some plugging (I’m such a bad person).
Another really good and kewl way to actually improve your editing skills is to join a writing community, where people help edit each other’s works. This is self-explanatory. Each person has their own editing process. At youngwritersonline.net, where I’m one of the mods (ugh, plugging. Type ‘Julian’ on the referral box if you ever wish to join), people have posted their different editing techniques (YWO Edits). Aside from their successful demonstration of self-hate, you can clearly notice how their editing styles differ. Isis is one of the best poets on the site/evar, so because your question is about poetry, you might want to look at her editing style.
Eh, I’ve removed a whole section about different kinds of writing sites. Looking through their archives, there seems to be nothing explicitly relevant to the notion of editing.
I’m really sorry for the late reply! I really wanted to post this at a time when most could see it. Hope I helped <3.
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