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Rose
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 Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:48 pm Post subject: Just a thought |
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Pure Essence
Joined: Mar 17, 2004
Posts: 2723
Location: Canada Ontario
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Rhymemeister
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| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Poetically Correct
Joined: May 24, 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Midwest U.S.A.
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I have revised many of my poems. Occassionally I have combined poems
or made two separate poems from one long poem. Sometimes changing just a few words can make a profound difference.
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"There are no bad sheep, only bad shepherds" |
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Bahaichap
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| Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 5:20 am Post subject: |
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Promising member
Joined: Apr 15, 2007
Posts: 23
Location: George Town Tasmania
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I have learned, at last, in this 5th edition of my memoirs, that revising can be a pleasure and that even the clumsiest initial draft can take on a life of its own in subsequent drafts. A revision, for me, seems to function in a multitude of ways. It yields simplification; it achieves greater depth and complexity; it results in a penetration, a digging beneath appearances to something I see as a greater reality or truth. Something quite new is produced as well as a refining of the old. One test of whether I have found that successful strategy, whether I have written a memorable autobiography, lies in the writer's ability to deal with painful experience, and to balance such moments of pain in intense living with the mundane, unexceptional progress of daily events. Only readers will be able to assess if I have, indeed, achieved this balance. 
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married for 41 years, a teacher for 35 years and a BahaŽi for 48 years. |
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Bahaichap
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:56 pm Post subject: More on Revising Poetry |
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Promising member
Joined: Apr 15, 2007
Posts: 23
Location: George Town Tasmania
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Some writers write slowly, rewriting, over and over. Some write quickly, rewriting. Perhaps I should rewrite and maybe one day I will take a fresh look at many of my poems and do a second draft. My attitude at the moment is like that of Robert Duncan in Talking Poetry: Conversations in the Workshop with Contemporary Poets(Lee Bartlett, 1987, p.54.): if I want to revise a poem, I simply write another one.
W.B. Yeats says that if he revises a poem it is himself that he is revising. And so he is strongly disinclined to revise poems.(W.B. Yeats: Collected Works in Verse and Prose, Vol.2, Epigraph, 1908). My overall plan which determines much of the process of writing is to integrate the historical experience of my religion(Baha'i) and its teachings, some aspect of life(history, science, philosophy, religion, etc.) from a book I am reading, something I have heard or seen in the print or electronic media, and my own experience. My poetry is an attempt to make one grand synthesis of what strikes me as interesting in life. Each poem is one part in that seemingly endless exercise, endless attempt at synthesis.
What I am doing is not particularly surprising. I think most people, Baha'is and people of all persuasions do this in one way or another all their lives. I just do it quite consciously in writing in poem after poem. I'd like to think this process, what I do in my poetry, may be of some use in triggering the process for others because it is immensely enriching.-Ron Price, Tasmania 
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married for 41 years, a teacher for 35 years and a BahaŽi for 48 years. |
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Cparker
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| Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:42 am Post subject: |
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Monkey Boy
Joined: Sep 26, 2004
Posts: 621
Location: Portugal/London
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I think there's a limit. It's very rare though that the first draft is the one that you keep, but I do believe that there is a point where the poem is at its best and fiddling with it more will just ruin its original spark. But then it must be a very subjective thing, maybe a poem can change as you yourself change.
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TealŽc : To resist the influence of others, knowledge of oneself is most important. |
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Bahaichap
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| Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 6:33 am Post subject: Poets Must Find Their Own Revising Eecipe |
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Promising member
Joined: Apr 15, 2007
Posts: 23
Location: George Town Tasmania
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I think the "to each their own" really applies here. I find, too, that drawing on the advise and experience of other poets a big help.-Ron Price, Tasmania.
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married for 41 years, a teacher for 35 years and a BahaŽi for 48 years. |
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Lithium
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| Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 7:13 am Post subject: |
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Super Newbie
Joined: May 05, 2007
Posts: 9
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| Poetry, like life, evolves. Outlooks and views change. I sometimes read my own work and I discover meanings that were hidden from me at the time of writing. I believe that these meanings were hidden in the origanal work waiting to be revealed to me at a later stage. I also believe that new meanings can be added and changed views altered. Poetry is dynamic. It lives - FOREVER! |
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angelicalmist
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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Honorary Crew
Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 100
Location: Salinas, Puerto Rico
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| I agree with you, Lithium, it evolves..... A few years ago I could have accepted my poems like they were, but now, like you, Rose, I keep wondering what else can I change or add or even take away from the poems to make them complete....... |
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Bahaichap
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: Another Word On 'Revising' |
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Promising member
Joined: Apr 15, 2007
Posts: 23
Location: George Town Tasmania
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William Wordswoth's poem 'The Prelude' was perhaps the greatest, but certainly the most extensively revised, of those altered poems in the last 200 years. He revised and revised and revised over the longest period, over the years 1805 to his death in 1850. This revision process is a history in itself. Some argue that William Wordsworth's Prelude is the greatest autobiographical poem since the French Revolution in 1789. "The Prelude," first written between 1798 and 1805 and revised it for the next forty-five years until his death in 1850, is not read much more these days,except by a coterie of people. But autobiographical poetry is, arguably the most dominant thread of poetry since Wordsworth in our culture.-Ron
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married for 41 years, a teacher for 35 years and a BahaŽi for 48 years. |
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