Revision Tip Number 1
I have been thinking a lot recently about revision. Well, to be honest, this isn't a new thing. I think about revision all the time. What strikes me as interesting is how many people see revision as a chore, as something onerous. But the key to revising effectively is really, I think, understanding revision as a challenge to the imagination. If it is a challenge, you are less likely to see it as awful. What I am trying to say is that revision is not just fixing comma splices and line breaks.
Peter Davison, who passed away last year, famously said that poets today are in love with the present tense. He is right. We love the present tense in an almost unnatural way. Why that is, I have no idea. But we miss so much when we are unaware of the powers of past and future tense. The present tense is incredibly limited. It is very difficult to layer time in a poem if all you do is write in the present tense. One way I have of revising poems that just seem to be lacking something is to change the tense. I take a poem and place it in future tense or past tense and see what starts to play out. Many times it helps me eliminate excess verbiage. It helps me to play with the story lurking beneath the surface of the poem.
The past tense is brilliant thing because it helps to imply self-knowledge in your poem's speaker. It can also tactfully broach issues of loss or regret. And the future tense? Watch out! It does some truly funky things to a poem when revising. It brings an authority we associate with the "Oracle." Future tense, with its predictive qualities, can completely revamp a sagging, failing poem. It has to be the least used tense in American Poetry. Have you played with the future tense lately?
I have a whole bag of tricks relating to revision. In many ways, they have become almost a version of "writing" for me. It is why it takes me so long to finish poems. That hands in the mud fun of playing with language is always enough for me. In the moment, revision is as generative as drafting the poem in the first place. I thank Donald Justice every day for teaching me that one simple thing. Revision doesn't have to be deadening. It can be as exciting as when the first word hit the page. It just takes a shifting of the mind to experience that.
posted by C. Dale @ 8:02 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Wow, this is cool. I've not thought about changing the tense of my dead poems. Thanks!
Oooh, I do love working with future tense. Thx for helping me articulate *why*...and you took down the Frank OHare poem! That is my fave O'Hare poem--I even posted that poem too in January, as a subtle nod to my beloved D.
It is Jacob's favorite poem. I didn't take it down but it is too large for my template and ended up getting dumped by blogger.
Bert-
Tense is something that I believe most poets establish without thinking. As such, tense change can really be one of those revisions that opens up a questionable piece.
I think the major challenge to revision is in finding a way to move oneself from the position of 'writer' to that of 'reader' for one's own work in any sort of reliable way. If one isn't able to do so, it may seem fine to be 'in love with' the present tense or that which is 'lacking' in the piece might not be apparent.
Workshopping at its best is a group of poet doctors sharing their bags of revisional tricks and forcing each other to step out of their respective heads.
There should be a DSM for poetry.
AD, There is a DSM for Poetry but not a major axis diagnosis. It is called cyclothymia. Check yourself. You may have signs and symptoms. Hehehehehehe.
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