Thanks for a very helpful read, Radha. You are an excellent instructor and I appreciate your mix of practical advice with mixed with intution. That is the balance poets need. I took your manuscript workshop at LitFest this week and I really appreciate the content you shared!
This is some of the most brilliant and pragmatic advice I've ever seen on keeping poems alive during revision, and on revision itself. I needed it today as I work on drafts I'm writing for a mutual friend's marathon. THANKS Radha~!
Radha, what a perfect first piece of writing about writing to pick up after I've been disconnected from much (but not all) of my writing life over the last month. It's a wonderful reminder that writing can be play, that letting the work simmer in a drawer is also part of writing.
thank you. great advice here. When going from first raw and enthusiastic rough draft, I often over do it the very next draft. If I recognize this, I also recognize that I do not yet have the eyes or ears to make the jump, that's when I turn back to reading more poetry, until I can experience a model of what it is I am striving for. Even then, I must let it simmer, to create from my center
I am, admittedly, an unreliable writer of poetry. But just in the last year I’ve started to massage through a first draft instead of slapping it on a blog (when I was blogging) or tossing it to a friend in a text message.
I think the thing I’ve been practicing is toggling between:
Does this edit give me access to more or does it diminish and shift away from what I’m trying to get out?
One impulse is rooted in an open-hearted posture and the other is planted in shame and fear of being misunderstood.
Thank you for this post. It’s very juicy and helpful. 🫶
I'm printing this essay to keep it in mind when I approach revision. I love your use of "glow" as a flag to alert the poet to what is calling to her/him/them. When I approach words or phrases with this in mind, I notice that words before or after can affect the relative "glow." I'm trying to say that sometimes it's not the word we think needs changing, but the word(s) around it. Such a great essay,--both inspirational and useful--Radha. You're going to have to collect these into a book pretty soon...
This discussion really gets to the literal heart of process and provides insights into what, for many of us, goes unaddressed. I do wonder if poetry so fundamentally must respond to our emotions, but am going forward as though I know it to be so. This essay is a gift!
That’s a good question about emotion. I don’t think of a poem as a response to emotion in the conventional sense. Not “emotional” but attending to the feelings that arise when things (words, images, sounds) are put into relationship. I think the best poems have that relational quality.
Thanks for a very helpful read, Radha. You are an excellent instructor and I appreciate your mix of practical advice with mixed with intution. That is the balance poets need. I took your manuscript workshop at LitFest this week and I really appreciate the content you shared!
This is some of the most brilliant and pragmatic advice I've ever seen on keeping poems alive during revision, and on revision itself. I needed it today as I work on drafts I'm writing for a mutual friend's marathon. THANKS Radha~!
The more I read and write poems, the less I know. As in everything else. Thanks for this helpful post.
Radha, what a perfect first piece of writing about writing to pick up after I've been disconnected from much (but not all) of my writing life over the last month. It's a wonderful reminder that writing can be play, that letting the work simmer in a drawer is also part of writing.
thank you. great advice here. When going from first raw and enthusiastic rough draft, I often over do it the very next draft. If I recognize this, I also recognize that I do not yet have the eyes or ears to make the jump, that's when I turn back to reading more poetry, until I can experience a model of what it is I am striving for. Even then, I must let it simmer, to create from my center
I am, admittedly, an unreliable writer of poetry. But just in the last year I’ve started to massage through a first draft instead of slapping it on a blog (when I was blogging) or tossing it to a friend in a text message.
I think the thing I’ve been practicing is toggling between:
Does this edit give me access to more or does it diminish and shift away from what I’m trying to get out?
One impulse is rooted in an open-hearted posture and the other is planted in shame and fear of being misunderstood.
Thank you for this post. It’s very juicy and helpful. 🫶
Thanks Radha! What a lovely and helpful way to think about revision ❤️
This is maybe the best post ever about writing poetry! Thanks so much.
Thank you, Barbara!
I'm printing this essay to keep it in mind when I approach revision. I love your use of "glow" as a flag to alert the poet to what is calling to her/him/them. When I approach words or phrases with this in mind, I notice that words before or after can affect the relative "glow." I'm trying to say that sometimes it's not the word we think needs changing, but the word(s) around it. Such a great essay,--both inspirational and useful--Radha. You're going to have to collect these into a book pretty soon...
This discussion really gets to the literal heart of process and provides insights into what, for many of us, goes unaddressed. I do wonder if poetry so fundamentally must respond to our emotions, but am going forward as though I know it to be so. This essay is a gift!
That’s a good question about emotion. I don’t think of a poem as a response to emotion in the conventional sense. Not “emotional” but attending to the feelings that arise when things (words, images, sounds) are put into relationship. I think the best poems have that relational quality.