(Part I of this article was published on March 14, 2011)
by James Cihlar
Revising for Publication: Books
Now that you’ve generated individual poems, have used the tools of a writing buddy and writing group, and have tried some of the simple revision approaches discussed in Part I of “Entering the Sweepstakes: The Optimistic Approach to Revision,” it’s time to think about how your poems might all fit together in a book. Unless you are Adrienne Rich, simply putting together in sequence the poems you’ve written over a period of time is not going to be enough to hold a book together. A poetry book should be greater than the sum of its parts. However, it’s also possible to stray too far in the other direction, the themed poetry book, where every piece adheres to an overarching conceit; these can end up feeling forced and gimmicky.
Putting It Together
As a book editor, I had several criteria that informed my selection of manuscripts for publication. After reading a manuscript, my touchy-feely criterion was: Would I enjoy spending two hours with this person—not the literal writer of the book, but the persona she creates through her work? Keep that in mind as you structure your book.
Poetry deals with scary, dark, angry, volatile subjects—I get that. But how, as a writer, are you dealing with it? In an admirable way? Would you stand behind your book in a court of character, even though you took risks in it? On the other hand, nothing kills a book faster than sentiment, especially solipsistic, narcissistic sentiment, so don’t go all Pollyanna, either. I personally liked books that had a sense of process or progress to them. They functioned almost like logical arguments: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or like syllogisms: major premise plus minor premise equals conclusion.
Poetry is so often about language, about how we know what we know and how we know what we don’t know. I liked manuscripts that found genuine dilemmas, eternal riddles in the human character or human situation, and that found an engine for attaining glimpses of solutions or escape. It’s much easier to structure a book once you have a pile of writing to work with, so think about how you would present your poetic “argument,” and start dividing into sections. Three sections at least, five at the maximum. Use your writing buddy and your writing group as sounding boards. Don’t ask them to do it for you, expecting that they have memorized all your poems. Show them the manuscript and contents page you’ve created and ask for their feedback.
Talking and Writing about Editing
When you get your book accepted, you are going to work with an editor. The dynamic here is different from working with your peers, but there is nothing to fear. Your editor will want to earn your trust as much as you will want to win his approval. An editor, whether he realizes it or not, counts on you to be true to the work above all—that’s your job. That doesn’t mean digging in your heels and fighting him at every turn. It does mean impartially filtering all his comments and learning from them as a result. You can’t just say, “Well, I disagree,” and leave it at that. You need to respond, and then he needs to respond to your responses, so keep it on a higher plane, for the good of the work.
Once you’ve generated a manuscript, you can start revising for structure.
1. Think of your manuscript as real estate. Some locations are better than others. Put key poems in key positions. Firsts and lasts are important. The first and last poem of each section as well as of the book should be distinctive, representative, and expressive of the larger section. Put at least one of your best poems near the front, and save at least one of your best poems for the end.
2. Think in terms of rhythm. Vary the sequence of poems in the collection, alternating short with long, lined with prose poems, etc., while keeping thematically related poems together. Consider the reader’s experience; we’re the short-attention-span generation, the remote-control nation, so switch the channels as the book proceeds.
3. Think in terms of acts, as in a play or musical. First acts set the stage, establish the premise, and may be entertaining and engaging. Second acts introduce the complication and may be tough and challenging. Third acts present the resolution—everything else builds up to this. Put your show-stopping number, with all the cast onstage, near the end of this act. Leave your readers with a bit of a denouement, some easier poems to ease them out of the book.
4. Think in terms of a great meal in several courses. If delicious dishes are the main highlight, there are also smaller servings that act as bridges, that cleanse the palate or underscore a flavor. In planning your menu, arrange your main courses first, and then fill in with the dishes that move us from one to the next.
5. Group like with like. If you have a set of short poems interspersed throughout, consider putting them all together into one section, and placing it in the middle.
6. Think of your manuscript as a map of monuments. Place the monuments in order and fill in the best ways to get from one to another; fill in with the poems that help do that. Write new poems if needed.
7. Write out your book in one sentence, in an “If-then” construction or a “Because then” construction. If you see gaps in your logic after this, write new poems to explore the missing subjects/themes.
8. As you are writing, put in everything relevant, old and new writing, including the kitchen sink. By the time the manuscript feels whole—at around seventy pages—go back and cut your weakest poems, the poems that make you feel queasy, the ones you’re not sure about, the ones that express revenge and mean something only to the person you’re mad at, or the ones that repeat other, stronger poems’ ideas and methods. Cut poems that sound too much like other poems.
If a small group of writers from all over the world can put these tips to good use, as my students did in Éireann Lorsung’s writing conference in the UK recently, then there is reason to be optimistic. We discovered a receptivity to new approaches applies to the middle of the process as well as to the beginning. Revision, the workhorse of writing, the heavy lifting we do so often in private, is as rife with opportunities for creativity as is inspiration, the spark that starts it all, and deserves to be conducted in the open.
Leaving our preconceptions behind, we should never regard revision as change for change’s sake. When our friends describe our new outfit as “different” or “interesting,” we know, for instance, that they are not being complimentary. A good reviser also knows when to stop. The law of diminishing returns applies to writers as it does, say, to other artists. In seventh-grade art class, I used to erase through the paper as I tried and retried to sketch a portrait accurately. The final product didn’t benefit from my dedication.
Even in the confines of a one-week conference, my students and I learned to shuck the onerous connotation of revision and to deal instead with it as swiftly as one might enter a sweepstakes. As an editor, the writers I admired most were the ones who pushed me to give them more feedback, who didn’t just dutifully respond to a list of requests, but who went above and beyond, surprising me with the results. Where they found the energy, let alone the insight, is a mystery, but a pleasant one. Writers, in general, are hypothetical thinkers—we like to ask ourselves, What if? We’re willing to try something unexpected, then quick to latch on to what’s working. It’s amazing, once we strike out on a path, what we may discover.
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.
