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Dan Wilcox's avatar

"Relentless revision..." just means it's a process, like Life itself.

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Jackie Craven's avatar

So true! I feel that I've rewritten myself a hundred times, and I'm still a rough draft. :)

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Marilyn McCabe's avatar

I revised a poem ending based on the advice of a Trusted Advisor, but in my mind, the change never "took," and ever after if I encounter my own poem in my own book, I'm surprised that it ends the way it does, and if I read it at a reading, I read the original version.

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Jackie Craven's avatar

Beware the Trusted Advisors! I've done this, too. Some poems I really wish I had followed my own instincts.

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Dan Wilcox's avatar

John Steinbeck said, "Beware of advice -- even this."

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Mimi Moriarty's avatar

Several years ago I attended a workshop lead by Eamon Grennan. He handed out one of his poems, a poem that had been published in The New Yorker a few months earlier. The poem was different than I remembered. When I made an inquiry about the poem, he said he was not satisfied with it and continued to work on it. After it was published in The New Yorker. I was completely flummoxed, but after reading your comments, I’m beginning to understand.

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Jackie Craven's avatar

Flummoxed is the word! If I had a poem in The New Yorker, I'd be so dazzled I'd be afraid to touch it. But the compulsion to revise is strong...

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Marilyn McCabe's avatar

Ah well, these aren't high stakes gambles...

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Alison Smith's avatar

Sometimes I've returned to an original and found that, after years of revising, I haven't really taken it that far. Or I took it far and then I brought it back. I rarely regret it though-- I love spending time with all the possibilities of a poem.

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