How to improve/polish poetry (to publication level)
November 24, 2019 10:57 PM   Subscribe

I found some poems I'd written. They seem to me to be decent. But I don't know what the next step after writing a first draft of a poem is.

For a story I'd get a beta reader. I'd do an edit for plot and character consistency, some thematic tweaking to bring consistent images/message through the whole thing, a line edit for garbage prose. I know the basic idea of story editing from experience and lots of reading on the subject. (Also there's some nameless instinct/sense and I have it.)

Also, with a story, I can give myself six months space and come back to it with fresh, almost stranger-like eyes.

For a poem--- I have no idea. I find it unlikely that as an amateur my poem is good enough on the first go. I can think of reciting it out loud to hear cadence and make sure it has at least some musicality but that's the end of my list of ideas. My first draft poems feel complete in a way that my first draft stories do not, which means I'm not seeing where the holes and problems are.

To make matters worse, unlike a story I find it really, really difficult to pull away into an objective space-- years later, I still know exactly what I wrote the poem about so it's really hard for me to tell if I'm being overly coy or obscure. At the same time, I have no idea how one finds poetry beta readers who know what they're talking about (I'm not interested in editing the poem towards the tastes of someone who doesn't know what makes a poem better).

Poetry writers of metafilter-- and particularly those of you who have published something, not just writing for yourself/friends-- what do I do?
posted by Cozybee to Writing & Language (3 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
First stop: fellow poetry writing friends and peers. Ask them what they think.

Second stop: poetry writing people on the internet - find a forum or review group you can bounce stuff around in.

Third stop: non poet friends, see what they think.


But to be honest, if as you say, your first drafts feel complete, maybe they are. Poetry is different to story-writing - often instead of a narrative, you are attempting to convey a feeling, and that is something which too much tweaking and editing can sometimes dilute. If you feel it's ready, then maybe it is.

Either way, I find value in doing what you do with stories and coming back to them after a period of time, sometimes a day, sometimes a week, sometimes a month. I can think of a better word here, a nicer phrasing there. But I rarely change very much unless it's a proper re-write, for the above reason.
posted by greenish at 5:29 AM on November 25, 2019


Everypoet.org is a great community for finding critiques as well as general writing advice. There are published authors on the site, but it is still a welcoming place to respectful newcomers.
posted by prewar lemonade at 6:00 AM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]


I have had a few poems published in literary journals.

I am in a writing group, so I bring my poems to the group, but I really get most of my revisions from looking at the poem myself. From what you’ve written, I’m not sure you spend a lot of time reading poetry, which really is key. You talk only about reading your own for musicality and cadence, but if you seriously read good poetry, you’ll see there is a lot more to it. Think about words and images. Are you using the most accurate words? Are your images fresh, or are you repeating cliches? Do your line breaks make sense? Are there reasons for them? What are you saying that’s never been said before?

But mostly, read. Consider the work of poets you like. What makes those works good? Apply the critical faculties you use in fiction to poetry. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a checklist you can just go through. Go through your poems line by line, word by word, and ask yourself what can be made better.
posted by FencingGal at 11:37 AM on November 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


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