For some, this may be a question of scraping it all into the bin; for others, a question of scraping it all out...

I thought it would be interesting to see how different poets set about the editing process. I wanted to go off at a tangent on Paul's 'automatic writing' discussion thread, but restrained myself.

This has quite possibly been done in discussion before but I think the turnover we have on the site leads to new poets, with new ideas. As ever, I have plenty to say on the matter, but I'll save if for when everyone else has had their say - no point in me doing all the work!

Editing poetry for me is often differing poem by poem as I don't have any set pattern, Isobel..

Some poems are finish 1st draft, others sometimes envolve over time.. I wrote one for example for my band wordmusic which they performed earlier in the year and left it to one of the girls to perform (girl vocalist) and she mis-read one of the stanzas totally live, but yet it made perfect sense... other ones can take years and years before you get it right etc...x

write it out then get rid of what doesn't fit with the theme tone and feeling of the poem -

for me editing is about honesty

I rarely use all the same words that I first write down on paper. Whatever it is I'm trying to say or allude to, I look at what near synonymous words would fit into that part of the syntax; how they 'sound' when read silently; how any vowel sounds in a consonant ie. <f> in F.B.I and how this could influence the sound (especially of those words surrounding each other) to glide along or obstruct it as and when you want it to. I also pay attention to words like <should> and <must>, <will> and <shall> and other such words which, although they appear similar, have a huge gaping hole separating their meaning. I probably edit far too much in a half-baked attempt to say or show more with less. It's a competitive world for language and its words. I don't rely too heavily on the first ones that appear as long as the sentiment or overall meaning is not corrupted.

I'm of the school that thinks that a poem is never finished and can be edited indefinitely, in much the same way that Dylan messes about with songs that are several decades old.I post my poems on WOL and another poetry forum and I take note of the comments - or lack of them - and edit in a systematic fashion. Considering all the cutting and changing that takes place my poems ought to be a lot better than they are!

I get the main bulk of it down, then make a better story out of it (I like stories, I like linearity, and clear rhymes - bite me), so some verses will be swapped around. Some words/tenses will be changed to fit the rhythm better. I try to avoid using repetitive words, but sometimes it really works in poems. That might spring from my love of call and response in music - the emphasis makes it rather than breaks it.

Sometimes I take a tip out of Elmore Leonard's 'book', and 'try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip'.

Sometimes I walk away for a few hours, thinking it's finished, and then the ACTUAL last verse or lines will just come to me :D I love the voice recording facility on my phone - can be seen sometimes coming out of tesco, furtively whispering lines into my mobile.

I am very tempted to continue editing sometimes, so I deliberately stop myself if I reach a point of satisfaction. Having said that, I've already changed a few lines of my most recent one, as it didn't sound right when I read it out loud.

The temptation to edit the thing out of existence is always there, with any writing, I reckon. Neil Young could be a right bugger for it.

I'm just a slob! :-)

I sometimes wonder if I don't so much write poetry, as find it: hence the somewhat collaged nature of my poems. I arrange things, add things, take them away, to make a pleasing shape (hopefully) rather in the way that a collagist arranges the elements of a picture. I used to cut and paste and leave the composition to chance; while that may still be part of my practice it is less so now. I read the poem alound several times to ensure a pleasing sound. Sometimes I write things down that I overhear and think, that will go there, in that poem.

I recently spotted a mistake in one of my recent poems that I thought I'd corrected; but instead of correcting it, I put in the word (sic.) to indicate that it's a mistake. I like drawing attention to the nature of poetry, to its essential "unfinishedness" (Valery: "A poem is never finished, it's only abandoned.")

Sometimes, I find myself rewriting something years later. That's OK too.

I have a man who does all that for me!

Steven - your post reminds me of a shopping list I once found in a checkout, and I really wish I'd kept it now. I would seriously consider posting it up. It started off with neat precise script, listing 'diet' and calorie controlled foods and drinks - 'lite' crisps, diet coke etc. At the end, it degenerated into a wild scrambling cursive script, listing loads of different types of full-fat crisps, and doughnuts, chocolate and milkshakes etc. Was absolutely hysterical to me - especially so that the list had been screwed up and tossed into the checkout 'bin' with (probably) nary a backwards glance :D

I hope whoever it was really enjoyed all that dirty food :D

Thought it was a funny editing story (shopping lists can be edited too!) - so thought I'd share that. In fact, I might just have a crack at recreating it - the ultimate po-mo shopping list :D

(I quite often pick up lists and handwritten notes that I see around and about - I'm incurably nosy)

Ha - thanks for the 'inspiration' Steven ;)

@Laura (hiya)re the discard that you found, reminds me of when I worked behind a bar and a female bar worker passed me a 'discarded' drinks order that was written in the 'shorthand' of a newly hired waitress. The first drink was for Cointreau...I'll leave your imagination as to the spelling.

Tommy

If you keep your eyes open, you know, you can pick up poetry anyway... and it's all free...

@ Tommy - Hahaa!!!! Blinding! I've seen some incredibly badly spelled pub menus too, in my time. I just cannot help myself pointing out the typos.

Good one this summer, at a festie - on the chalk board of a food wagon was scrawled 'sorted potatoes'

Nearly choked laughing :D :D

Hi Little Doggy! We do change you know! When I joined up (I wasn't conscripted honest!) I couldn't bear to alter my little poems. Now, I feel very happy to be given ideas and maybe pointed in the right direction. It's all a learning curve - if we can be bothered to learn. Hope I can!

When people start writing, they're probably too close to it to be able to take criticism. It's only when you take a step away from it that you can start to be objective and began to see the faults and how they can be improved.

'Course, when you get famous, perhaps you get to the position when you think you know it all and are therefore entitled not to be critiqued anymore. Hence the incredibly dull recent poems of the past and present poet laureates...

Oh you and your poet laureates!! (Not that I don't agree!)

There are many excellent comments on here. I, personally, am an editting maniac. I very rarely share poems 'off the cuff'; if I say I do it's a kind of cheating because I'm sure it's been kicking around in my head for ages. My poems slither like wet cats under my fingers, snap, snarl and bite. And I smack them right back, full-clawed. It is a severe contest between original thought and dynamic finished idea. I approach writing poems from many different angles, perhaps the reason I feel I have no 'voice'. Top of the list though, is sustaining the original 'feel' which first hit me, that 'abstract' which 'moved me' to write about anything. Then I will jockey everything around, and around, and around - sometimes adjusting a single word to other parts of speech for more effective meaning, for the best sound in a chain of words or lines, for the more chiselled (or luminous) image, for the strongest drama. If a word or phrase is 'precious' to me, it may survive the culling in a totally different part of the poem. Or it goes out! and then makes room for a finer concept. I hate removing favoured expressions, but I think you have to be adjustable. A finished poem isn't my baby, it's my partner.

One of the difficulties in providing even feedback to other poets is setting the right tone and ensuring that feedback is positive in it's nature. Setting the right tone can be difficult in cyberspace at the best of times but it is especially if you are attempting humour - what may seem side-splitting funny to you may be taken as deadly serious and hurtful by someone else.

I would advise reviewers to only give positive feedback on poems they enjoy rather than simply rubbishing ones that they do not. Further, it's a good idea to talk to the poet and get to know them before launching forth with what you think is a better way forward for their poetry. By talking to people you will quickly find out if they would appreciate you pearls of wisdom or not and/or whether you are on the same wave length.

And always remember that criticism is in itself an art form and that others will judge you by your critique.

Importantly, please, please do not attack other reviewers for the comments they make and definitely do not make personal attacks. There are too many instances when reviewers start having a go at each other and forget the poor poet whose work they are supposed to be commenting on. In future we will consider removing any such contributions.

We are also considering providing a professional critiquing service if there is sufficient demand for it - let me know if you would be interested in paying for such a service.

I find it increasingly helpful to get feedback criticism on here. In the early days I might have been more defensive. As long as we remember that they are our poems and if someone suggests what they think is an improvement, we can always ignore it. I have found everyone very kind. But I have also found that going on a poetry course where my stuff was criticised helped a lot and has affected how I write. You don't maybe get anywhere if everyone just says "How lovely!" On the other hand, that's what I usually say!

There is a lot of wisdom in what you say Paul. I think you do have to know a poet really well before you offer substantial critique – or know that they can handle it at any rate. There have been incidents where poets have offered up poetry for critique though and then not liked that critique when they got it. It is also perhaps a question of giving critique whilst celebrating the positives in a poem. The cynics out there may see that as massaging egos – but I would say that it is a question of diplomacy. We are all on a learning curve. In order to progress, we have to take on board advice without being repressed by it. Essentially we are no different to children at school. Given a piece of work by a child, you may highlight the odd spelling mistake but you don’t go to town on it in red ink – that would be too soul destroying.

The problem with only ever giving positive feedback Paul is that it makes blogs and comments incredibly dull – essentially a lot of back slapping. There is clearly a price to pay for everything. I would agree that comments are often read in a completely different tone to the way they were intended by the writer. Perhaps we all have to take a few deep breaths before we launch into retaliation. I would hate to see admin removing comments willy nilly though – that would be a real turn off for me – essentially the loss of freedom of speech. I’d rather people just developed thicker skins.

There are so many wonderful contributions on here I don’t know where to start. Maybe at the most recent….
Cynthia – I love the idea that your poetry is a partner, rather than a baby – what a wonderful concept! That rather gets across the way poetry can torture you also….Your approach to writing poetry is similar to how my ‘uninspired’ writing occurs. By that I mean that I am inspired by an idea, a thought and from that wring out and agonise over words till I have a poem. You are right to say that keeping to the original feel of the poem can be difficult in those circumstances. My inspired writing comes a lot more easily – seems to pour out of me – it usually comes from personal experience rather than abstract thought, so it is in my blood, waiting for an outlet and needs a lot less effort to be written.

Steven – I would agree that much of the poetry of poet laureates, past and present, can be dull. I guess they have to play safe when they choose a poet laureate – nothing too controversial and someone who will appeal to the masses. I like some of Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry but I find her structure bizarre. I’m more of a performance poet and have to lay my words out the way I would say them, with the pauses and line breaks in the right places. I just can’t see how she arrives at her form of structure. Having said that, maybe structure isn’t so important in the grand scheme of things.

Re cutting back on the wordiness of our poetry, I am in agreement with John Aikman. Very many poems on here could be made so much better, just by a cull of words. Sometimes those words are the little ones – AND, IT, THE. I once saw a poem that Steven Waling edited – it was enormously improved just by the removal of all these extraneous words – it was given better flow, became more incisive. I must say that often my editing involves nothing more than the removal of those little words to cut what I am saying down to the essentials. It makes your message sharper – makes your poetry bite more and it is so easy to do.

Laura/Tommy – I find spelling and grammatical mistakes in poetry very distracting – perhaps I’m too anal. They just take my attention when I should be thinking about the words. Occasionally spelling mistakes slip through cos they can be spelt in 2 ways and spell check can’t pick that up. Cynthia and Ray are great at picking them up and I am glad that they tell me about them cos I hate errors in my poetry. I particularly hate seeing your and you’re mixed up – for me it represents a decline of the English language that is regrettably seeping through to all areas – too much texting no doubt and I’m a turning into a dinosaur. If I had a severe problem with spelling, I would get a friend to check my poems out before posting them. That way the bulk of errors would be sorted and no-one would need to worry about whether they were treading on my toes by correcting me.

Darren – the way you write poetry sounds a lot more technical and conscious than most. You seem to use a lot of analysis – almost like a piece of engineering – perhaps that is because you study the nuts and bolts of language; though I’m wondering whether I do the same by feel – a kind of ‘sounds right’ approach, without any theory behind it. I would agree with not always using the first word – we are so lucky to have this rich language of ours – there is such a wealth of choice and marginal differences between similar words can so affect the nuance.

Steve – honesty is a must and I agree with pitching out words or expressions that don’t go with the final tone and feel of a poem. Sometimes that is hard to do because it could be one of the first words or lines you came up with. Writing a poem is a bit of journey though and sometimes we end up with a piece that is better or at least very different to our original expectations.

Andy – your experience with someone else reading your poetry sounds a hoot! You are generous to let someone else read your poetry. I couldn’t imagine anyone else reading mine. I’d have to find someone mean and opinionated enough to carry it off – and then that person would probably have their own soap box to stand on…

One last point I’d like to make re accepting criticism. I touched on this in Paul’s ‘automatic writing’ thread. It’s great when people offer critique in a positive and helpful way – it can be very useful to us as we seek perfection. One poet’s idea of perfection can be very different to another’s though. The honesty that Steve Garside talks of, also has to come through in our work. We are performing poets, not performing monkeys. Unless you are comfortable with the changes people suggest, don’t accept them. It is better to perform an imperfect piece that you are happy with than a poem that slips away from you cos it belongs to someone else’s diction and delivery.

Here endeth the last lesson.

Thank you all for contributing to the thread. I have loved reading your contributions. I wonder if anyone will find the time to read this essay of mine LOL xx

Paul, you have taken the original subject of 'personal editting' into the office of 'editorial editting for acceptable publication' and/or commentary/critiques online of other poets' works. I know the theme swerved off-track; so your input is valid at this point. But these are two new subjects to explore. I would greatly value further knowledge about the 'editorial editting' dilemma.

Didn't mean to ignore you Ann/Ray!

I'm with you on editing Ray - but only up to a point. Have just finished a poem for a slam I'm going in to. It has been pure torture. I've edited and edited and edited and still certain lines bug me cos they aren't 100% to my satisfaction. The cut off point for me is when I post it on here. It's like a release once it's posted. I doubt many people ever read them after the first week and how many people notice the difference in nuance between 2 words when you are performing it?
Yes - a poem stops haunting me once I've released it in cyber space - what an odd concept!

Isobel, sorry, by positive feedback I don't mean simply a back-slapping love fest (though I obviously expect that for my wonderful work) but rather that the reviewer takes not only the trouble to point out problems in the poem but also to suggest possible solutions.

On a basic, simple level this could involve correcting say spelling/grammar - though I'd prefer to do this by email.

Where the reviewer thinks the poem or part of it doesn't work then they not only highlight the problems but suggest edits or possible alternative ways forward.

But always in the spirit of cooperation and friendliness without being condescending or giving the feeling of knowing best.

Cynthia, Not sure what you mean by the 'editorial editing' dilemma - perhaps you could start a new thread and posit the question more fully.

I hear whay you say Paul - critique in a positive way. That would be my way ahead also. If I can't find anything positive to say I try to move on and ignore a poem now. Very occasionally I get dragged into commenting on a poem I don't like. Normally I am drawn in by comments left by other poets. It is hard not to - we are all human after all and other poets just spark our thoughts off... Whether or not that is a bad thing is often down to the particular set of circumstances - impossible to legislate on, I would think. Is that poet robust enough to handle it? What is the nature of the poem's message? Were they asking for some emotional kick back?

At the end of the day, there is a facility to turn off comments on a poem. Perhaps you could add another button where a poet asks for positive feedback only....

Paul - one of the difficulties of providing even feedback is setting the right tone etc... etc...

Well said!

I think it's most important to have some mutual respect as well as some kind of rapport to ensure that no-one gets hurt or unduly upset.
The ones who come across as know it all's get none from me. The ones who come across as friendly and helpful get mutual respect and god knows I have needed and wanted help from those people and still do sometimes. All 'suggestions' to strengthen any poem by any poet should be considered then adopted where it feels right and where it doesn't, the one making the suggestion shouldn't feel injured either. That's humanity!

Isobel - I'm just a slob by the way :-)

I'm intrigued by what's regarded as the critiquing dilemma. I often wonder why various people post their poems. I post mine because I'm interested to hear what people think of them, what was good, what was bad, what worked, what didn't. If they have suggestions on how to improve, so much the better.There is such a thing as constructive criticism and it can be learnt.Being polite isn't difficult. Though, you know, if someone is arrogant and condescending, then that attitude permeates much of what they say, be it in a pub or online poetry forum.Much as I've grown fond of WOL, there isn't enough criticism of any kind and it does verge upon back-slapping at times. The one thing I think would improve WOL more than anything is this: poems are posted and roll away inexorably, regardless of their quality and the interest aroused. 2 or 3 days seems to be the shelf-life of almost all poems. This doesn't encourage engagement on anything but a superficial level, in my view. On many sites there's a mechanism whereby a comment on a poem will automatically raise that poem back to the top of the reading list. Generally speaking, the poems that arouse most interest will stick around, be discussed more fully, the writer will receive more feedback etc. It might also lead to the posting of fewer poems - more quality, less quantity.I'd be more interested in something like this happening - that we can do ourselves - than a professional critiquing service.

Hi Ray
I think that's an interesting idea though I'd like to see it discussed more fully. Could you start a new thread and ask for comments please.
Cheers
Paul

Yes Steve - I think that the ability to self critique leads through to being able to critique others also. It is that tendency to look for perfection or to at least look for a smoothing of what is bumpy. I think we get better at this the more we write and the more extensively we read. Good critique takes time - in some ways we should be pleased that people took the time to think about it - it shows that they liked the poem in some way - though it may not always feel like that.
Ray - I think we should be careful about shoving to the top of the pile work that has most comments on it. Some poems get lots of comments cos poets like to banter; on occasion those comments are bits of shite. There would be nothing more aggravating than having them dominate less commented on work that may be of higher quality.

Here here or hear hear Isobel! Re a poem going to the top cos someone just commented on it. It would also become a self-fulfilling thing. Some poems, we'd never see the back of 'em!

Isobel/Ann. What I've suggested is hardly novel. It's the norm for poetry sites. From my observations it works better than the current system on WOL because it gives more opportunity for greater participation and input from more members.The current system does not encourage any extended discussion on how to improve a poem. It's here today and gone tomorrow, or at the most the day after.
For my part, I'm cool with the status quo - I like the people, the diversity and the ambience on WOL but then I also use another site where the critiques are more helpful/challenging. But the folk and the ambience there aren't nearly so nice!

welcome back

Isobel - can't really speak for Tommy, but I was commenting on the humour involved in certain typos. Usually, they irritate the shite out of me, but some of them are so incredibly bad that they're funny. I agree re slipping of standards of written word though - big bugbear of mine. We have all of these words to convey meaning - get them wrong, and the meaning is wrong. Simple.

Ray - I like the idea. I used to be involved with a bulletin board/forum and they had a 'new posts' button, which worked in the same way. Used 'vbulletin' software - not sure how that would work on here, or even if there is a freeware version.

Although it would appear that some poems have a short shelf life, I read back through loads of blogs if I see one newly posted and really like it. Can't be the only one who does that. I suppose I should have commented but am only just getting my teeth into WOL at the moment.