by James Cihlar

Revising Individual Poems

The first steps in revision are the most basic. You must read a lot, and you must write a lot. Because cutting and reshaping are common revision tools, it helps to have plenty of material to work with. As you write first drafts, turn off your censor and generate poems. Keep it going every day, if you can. Your mind is an engine, your life is an enterprise, and your poems work from, elaborate, and develop your sense of how the world works, and how you work in it. Poems are a record of your attempts to mediate the world. Embrace that to begin with, and don’t give it up. Keep it separate from the revision process.

As writers who live and work in a community, we often give each other feedback. A funny thing about criticism: there’s something strangely hopeful about it. By pointing out what’s wrong, by naming the mistakes of the past, we unavoidably imply a world in balance, lay claim to our inherent rights. Writers do this in their subject matter, and in their process: we move from criticizing what is to imaging what could be. This visionary act requires faith. Writers seem to be more willing than most to take our chances in hopes of the big payoff, the personal achievement, the artistic success. We know the odds are against us, but we plunk down our money for the lottery ticket every time.

I recently traveled to the UK to teach seminars on revision at a poetry-writing conference organized by poet and native Minnesotan Éireann Lorsung. Including students from as far away as Lebanon and South Africa and from as nearby as Beeston and Nottingham, my sessions focused on revising individual poems and poetry manuscripts. Participants included a former computer programmer who quit to enter a creative writing program, a painter whose first book of poetry was due out shortly from Salt Publishing, and the marketing director for the National Forest. Of widely mixed backgrounds, varying levels of experience, and differing ages, the students held in common an openness to new approaches.

My own background is varied. I studied in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as an undergraduate, and then earned my PhD in English. I’ve taught college literature and creative writing, and I’ve edited at several literary and trade presses. I’ve published a book of poetry, Undoing, and a chapbook, Metaphysical Bailout, and my reviews, interviews, and poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies. I’ve found that revision, rather than being the pointless chore we associate with freshman composition, is a productive and creative act, and what follows are the results of my discussions with students and writers, particularly the group in the UK.

Talking and Reading about Writing

Because poetry is a conversation with our peers, you should read the newest poetry books that are being published, read current journals, and study your favorites. Your favorites can be—and often are—writers who do not write like you. That’s good.

There are many opportunities for revision in writing, and each context has its own advantages and inherent rules. Because they often involve communication, conversation, and critique, observing some basic principles on both the reader’s and writer’s ends of the exchange will help facilitate the best results.

Writing Buddy

With a writing buddy you have a one-on-one exchange of work. I show virtually all of my new poems to my partner, William Reichard, and he shows some of his to me. I rely on him to give me practical advice, including suggestions for cutting or rephrasing. I also gather a general sense of how strong or weak a poem is, in comparison to my others, from his reaction. This sort of exchange is generally in shorthand. I don’t want or expect theoretical examinations—just good, old-fashioned, honest, and useful advice and reactions.

What you see is what you get in conversations with your writing buddy; it’s okay to ask for a little clarification, but don’t push it. What you get in the long haul, over multiple exchanges, is much more valuable than what you could drag out of one conversation about one poem. In my case, I generally listen to this advice, and do what I’m told.

Writing Group

I think the chief functions of a writing group, which may provide detailed, verbal criticism to a poem, is to create a discipline for writing—an excuse to write new material—to offer encouragement, and to socialize us as writers. Remember how in junior high and high school we learned by observing what our classmates were wearing, how they were talking, and what music they were listening to? And then we silently copied them? A writing group gives you the chance to do something similar, in a much more aboveboard manner.

Listen to what your writing group compliments in your work. Do more of that, and do less of what escapes notice. Concentrate on the positives. Listen to how your group members talk about their own writing, get names and titles of books they are reading, and admire what they do well in their work. Apply the same lessons to your own process. When someone gives you the courtesy of a thorough read on a poem, even if you disagree with it, respect the attention they paid, which is ultimately a compliment. If you are hearing the same things from different people over time, it may be worth taking to heart. But you should also recognize that some readers are sharper than others, and over time you will learn which ones are worth paying the most attention.

Even in informal meetings, basic decorum is important. Generally, one member reads her poem aloud, with no commentary, and then other members of the group respond with thoughtful reactions. Comments should be phrased as descriptions of the individual act of reading: when I read this, I thought you were saying . . . or this reminded me of . . . or I wonder if you mean . . . Anyone can pick apart a poem, but finding something insightful, encouraging, and accurate to say is the real trick. I’m proud of a comment a student made in a writing group years ago, when he complimented a poem about aging for using the word “unadulterated” because that word contains the word “adult.”

Revising for Publication: Journals

Often when we send out individual poems to journals, we get simple responses: yes or no. Yes, they accept it and will publish it, or in most cases, given the numbers, No, they reject it. Sometimes editors will write individual comments on rejections. Take these for the compliments that they are, even if they are a hastily scribbled “Thanks” and an illegible set of initials. Sometimes editors will say that a certain poem out of a grouping “came close.” Use this to develop your sense of the taste or bias of that editor. If you send her work again in the future, try to choose poems similar to that one.

Rarely, editors may offer editorial comments on poems, saying that if you revise they will look at them again. Follow up on this. It’s a simple exchange, and don’t make it more than that. Get the magazine publication under your belt, and if you have second thoughts about the revision, save them for when your book comes out. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the magazine editors will accept your work even after you revise it. There’s an old joke in which a patient tells a doctor, “It hurts when I do this,” and the doctor’s cure is “Don’t do this.” If you keep sending work to a magazine and they keep rejecting you, stop sending to them.

Some Brass Tacks

Write a lot, read a lot, and set the poems aside for a day or longer. Don’t reread them right away, tempting as that is. Come back to them after your head is cleared (and/or show them to a trusted friend) and then try one or more of these tips:

1. Try rebreaking the lines in a different form. If the poem is free verse, try putting it in three-lined stanzas with stepped indents. Or put it in couplets.

2. Break the poem into sections, beginning with roman numerals. Or break a long poem into separate poems.

3. Find the “heart” of the poem, and move that to the beginning. Cut any “introductory” material. Write new lines suggested by the heart of the poem—see how far you can take them, and what new discoveries you make.

4. Cut the last lines of the poem, particularly if they serve the function of explaining the meaning of the poem or your intentions.

5. Cut any words or phrases that direct the reader, including transitions, such as “so,” “however,” “nevertheless,” or “but.”

6. Turn similes into metaphors. Cut phrases that set up images for the reader, and present the images unmediated.

7. Break apart your sentences so that the subjects or verbs are implied and understood, but not stated.

8. Find a word within a poem whose meaning is central to the idea, and repeat it subtly, ideally using it in different contexts and within different meanings.

9. Choose your best lines in the poem, and cut the rest—be ruthless. Arrange the remaining lines in an order that reflects emotional progression or poetic logic. Then write into the blanks—write your way up to and down from each of those lines, providing connections by putting yourself into that brainspace.

10. Set aside your assumptions about what you think you mean in a poem, and let the language find the meaning for you. Cut or rewrite lines, particularly endings, and let the poem end on a note that either makes you slightly uncomfortable or that you are not entirely sure about.

Of course, the risk of lists is utter didacticism, and it’s too late for me to pretend I’m not being didactic. But if trying these exercises loosens up the creative muscles and leads to new ideas, no matter how indirectly, then they are doing the trick.

Stay tuned for Part II of this article. You’ll find brass tacks about revising books for publication.

James Cihlar is the author of the poetry book Undoing (Little Pear Press) and chapbook Metaphysical Bailout (Pudding House Press), and he has placed his writing with American Poetry Review, The Awl, Cold Mountain Review, Prairie Schooner, Mary, Rhino, Painted Bride Quarterly, Emprise Review, Verse Daily, Washington Square Review, and Forklift, Ohio. His reviews appear in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Western American Literature, Coldfront, and Gently Read Literature. The recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship for Poetry and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, Cihlar is a lecturer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a visiting instructor at Macalester College in Saint Paul.