[stylist] poem revisions

[Lynda Lambert]

OH, I love this, Bill!  - your quote," I've adopted a kind of joyful
bloodymindedness about it all, so there's not even a twinge of pain
about doing this."

I do this kind of rewriting and editing often, and it's not unusual for me 
to work on something for months at a time...after all poetry is a  *craft * 
and I have that joyful feeling Bill speaks of when I am CRAFTING my writing 
possibilities as I work on them.  I call them *works* for that is what they 
are - constructions as WCW would call them.  We create, build, tear down, 
build more, and tear into them again and again - until the new essence is 
found. It is a great feeling.

This note from Bill is a keeper - it's all about the growth of the person as 
well as the poem. It's about change, and livingness, and fresh thoughts and 
ideas. bill, I just loved this post - you reflect my thought on it.
Barbara, one thing that can be done is to do the copyright with the new date 
on the newly revised poem  In my chronology, I will write both dates on the 
poem if I still call it by the same title.  I can tell by the copyright date 
with is the old one and which is the new one. but, often I revise it so 
drastically it gets a new title, too.  Lynda

-----Original Message----- 
From: William L Houts via stylist
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 1:27 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Cc: William L Houts
Subject: Re: [stylist] poem revisions



HI Barbara,

I make a kind of game out of my revisions.  Sometimes, I'll just cruise
through my poetry folder ("Cosmos") and rnandomly give a once over to
one or even several poems; just eyeball them to see how I feel days,
weeks or months after first writing them. Gradually, over time, all of
myh poems get at least minor revisions, and over the long haul they all
get at least two or three overhauls.  I've adopted a kind of joyful
bloodymindedness about it all, so there's not even a twinge of pain
about doing this, and I feel that my poetry in general really does
improve with time.  I used to be very squeamish and protective about my
stuff, and had a real case of the horrors when it came to editing.  But
now I really enjoy the process  and my work in general has, I feel,
improved. My advice is to keep in mind that Word documents (or
Wordperfect or what have you) exist in order to be revised.  It's so
easy to delete, and almost as easy to rewrite, to commit new thoughts to
the page that there's no reason to sufferthrough the process.  Just
remember that hope springs eternal --and so does poetry.  >grin<



--Bill








On 6/18/2015 9:36 AM, Barbara HAMMEL via stylist wrote:
>
> I know, for years I've been saying I was going to try revising my poems. 
> As you know, I have always thought a poem complete and the way it was 
> meant to be until you fine folks informed me that improvements could be 
> made on them. But, somehow, I can't bring myself to do it because it would 
> mess up my extensively organized folders by doing that. My question is, do 
> you then count a revised poem as a new one? You'll probably tell me it's 
> up to me what I do but I need help tricking my brain because if I rewrite 
> something, seems to me it should have a new date. I have actually sorted 
> my poems into ones I want to work on revising and which are too personal 
> or too awful or stupid to waste my time improving on.
> Barbara
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________
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-- 


"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"


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