Renovation: Revising a Poem

Just some notes on revision tonight. And these are purely personal. I have thrown away the book of poetry commandments. I dislike fundamentalism in religion. And so too poetry. Write what you damned well want to write. To paraphrase "uncool", if there must be fifty ways to leave your lover, then there must be fifty-thousand ways to leave your blood on the tracks (or not,) to paraphrase "cool." First some fun with html, or seeing the baby and the bathwater (clean copy here:)

Cold-Blooded Observation

Roots have been exposed along the trail.
Persistent hiking boots have worn away
the earth around them. (They look the way I feel—
even thelike some spruce trees have turned completely gray.)
I see a snake!. At first I think it’s just
another tendril loose from all that years of wear.
B—but then I see spot its tongue. In woods we trust
but everything is soon in woodlands dwell in states of disrepair—
except but not this snake. It slides with certain charm and grace
reminding me that movement is itself
a blessing. I locate a resting place
and watch it twist and turn genuflect from up above.
I may not be eternal immortal in this form
but if when I keep on moving I’ll stay grow aroused I keep stay quite warm.

I find myself writing first for the general gist, trying to get the meter and rhyme right. Although there comes a time, like this one, when I take my eyes off the road and finish with an ending like this:

a blessing. In the open marketplace
we bury everything at rest we love.
The rest is still for sale, a value—nice!
But things that talk provide a lovely price.

In such times I try to start that section over again. But of course there are times when I try to put the poem together anyways and end up with a Rube Goldberg-looking contraption, but one that doesn't even work.

But if I succeed in rewriting, then I turn to revision:

Most often, I discover the "meaning" of the poem or at least partial understanding after that first "successful" draft. I may change words or phrases in order to clarify that understanding or at least tease it into the poem.

On the other hand, there may be traces of perception that require immediate execution with extreme prejudice.

I may play with words for sound value or visit add-a-trope.

I may have a stubborn idea but the sentence fails to cooperate. I bring out the tool belt in these instances and begin hammering and wedging and swearing up a storm until it either fits or I give up.

I may not like the looks of a rhyme.

I may want to do something clever with the meter. Usually I try to write the initial draft in "perfect" meter, with little or no substitutions, except for initial trochees maybe. Although I am trying to deviate. But not into metrical perversion mind you.

And 49,994 other reasons which escape me at the time.

I'm not trying to be encyclopedic here (plus I've already gone over the readable blog word limit by 189, no, make that 205,) but just talk to myself. Feel free to eavesdrop.