A Basic Principle of Poetry Editing: Being Doubtless About Your Poetry

Editing is a commonly dreaded word in the eyes of a student, but in poetry it can constitute the difference between a wild, untamed piece and a refined, synthesized creative presentation. Correcting the flaws in your poetry is as much a creative process as writing your initial inspiration. To secure your vision, you are prodded to use your imagination and muse to make the lopsided portions of your poem a coordinated composition.

The main reason one should edit one’s poems is to clear doubts. Doubts will cause you dissatisfaction, and a lack of confidence will result in not confronting these penultimate verses. Though a doubt is felt intuitively and is based on the style of the author, there are essential features that cause reason to be skeptical in one’s poetry. The areas of poetic congestion are excess words, unnatural rhyme, word choice (non-exacting and stale), unreachable perception of meaning, and disorganization.

Excess Words

In selecting words to take away from your poem, be wary that your poem does not become too sparse. The naturalness of your own language should still show through. Also, one should not compromise one’s vision for technical dryness. The words that you can focus on for carrying weight in your poem where it is not needed are transitional words, adjectives and adverbs.

In poetry, unlike essays, the author need not give strong transitional phrases or words to connect ideas, as the conceptions in poetry are shown in such a way that it is evident of the subsequent subject. The images, the metaphors and other devices illustrate your transition. And sometimes, simply a new paragraph can show your transition.

Also, watch your descriptors, or adjectives and adverbs. Many times descriptive words are redundant and on occasion, over abundant. In using adjectives and adverbs, check if your usage of these additives are meaningful and original, or interesting.

Unnatural Rhyme

Rhyming is entertaining and its sounds are very pleasing. Yet, when a poet writes in rhyme and results in forced tones, the magic of rhyme depletes. Mostly, it is reliant on flow. If your rhyme seems a natural part of the speech of the poem, and keeps with the mood, the rhyme has a natural resonance. This skill takes a certain qualification: patience. One has to write many poems with rhyme before understanding the subtle nature of making rhyme an instinctive part of your poetry.

Word Choice (Non-Exacting and Stale)

The goal of a poet, in most cases, is to present his or her imagination in words that fully illumine what the poet has seen, or a poet’s vision. If the words chosen do not represent fully what you have seen as your vision for the poem, or particular instances in the poem, then it is not complete. Choosing the best word for your imagination or sight as a poet is not easy, and takes times to deliberate. It is similar to a puzzle - that once all the pieces are aligned, the picture becomes much clearer.

Cliché and overused words often times lower a poem’s power and interest from the reader. Worn phrases, metaphors and words can pull down a mood that was carefully constructed in the poem. Colloquial language has its place in poetry, such as when someone is speaking in a poem, or being ironic.

Unreachable Perception of Meaning

Being ambiguous is understood to be a good sign in poetry, but when a poem is indiscernible or over obvious, the strength has been lost. Read your poem as if you have never heard of your writing, nor do you know of yourself as a person, and see how it fairs. Can you understand the images and ideas that you show? Where could the reader lose his or her way? When you identify the area of the conundrum, remember your original vision and investigate the proper or most fitting word or phrase to best describe your concept.

Disorganization

A sequence of a poem can either link all your ideas, or disrupt the flow of ideas. Some poets intentionally mix around the sequence of their concepts in their compositions for an effect. But this usually does not fair with common population readers, i.e. non-poet readers or non-scholarly readers. To have the concepts in your poem flow as a whole, and not as fragments, is an essential component of poetic learning. To acquire this skill, try rearranging your stanzas, lines and words to see if they come to a better result.

In working to correct your doubts, you have to have the patience to edit at least once fully in order to feel satisfied with the poem from a literary standpoint and creative perspective. In fact, meticulously editing the poem three times is a good way to make sure you are doubtless. And above all, be persistent, and settle for what you meant to write.

The copyright of the article A Basic Principle of Poetry Editing in Writing Poetry is owned by Nicholas Klacsanzky. Permission to republish A Basic Principle of Poetry Editing in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Dec 18, 2008 11:21 PM

Guest :

Thanks for the article. I used to edit my poems a lot. It was a learning experience and sometimes the poems changed drastically. And the further away I got from them in time, the better I was able to discern where changes were necessary. But something was missing. Then I had my first book of poems (Cracked, due out in February 2009) edited by a poet laureate. It was a scary experience but I learned so much about my inconsistencies, flaws and even creativity, that my writing improved and became more consistent. Through the editing process by someone else I saw my voice and my style. I have started working on a new book and find that I am doing less editing - working more with a thesaurus as the poem is being crafted. However, I will still give it some time and go back to the poems later once I have distanced myself from them and can be more objective. In any case, I really love the process.

Alice Shapiro