Revision Process

[Lizzie]

If there's a good back and forth I'll always try to return to it. Sometimes I don't feel comfortable making further comment if the only changes the OP has made are those that I suggested, for fear that people think I'm patting myself on the back.

I can see that: good job changing that period like I told you to!

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theoretically, there is no reason one couldn't make every edit suggested as soon as possible. it isn't as if by making the revision and posting it one is necessarily committed to it. if someone says "it's all wrong. you should change x, y, and z", then do it, post it, and see how that works, ask "what d'you think?". there need be no genuine agreement with the criticism in order to make the edits. it isn't like a painting whereby suggested revisions are a mission to implement and an even bigger mission to correct. or, let's say, it isn't like the poem is already printed, published, and being sold in Waterstones. this is a dedicated website that affords one a platform to make infinite edits and re-edits, with none of them being cut in stone.

I'd feel like my poem was not my own if I did this. I've certainly made changes I didn't like in order to make a poem better, but I have to agree that it will in some way better the outcome before I launch into a change. Sometimes I have a hard time re-conceptualizing in order to make edits and I can't do them eternally.

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Me, I do all the revising before I post something. When people make good points about things, or later I see things differently, I say Well this is an imperfect poem and I want to do better next time. Well, sometimes I say that. But me, personally, I like having flawed poems. Sometimes I want to write pretty things that most everyone agrees are good. But I keep my flawed poems around and read them out loud to people. I like them. Sometimes I like them better than the ones other people tell me are actually good. To me that just seems natural.

Funny, although I do actually enjoy some of my flaws; I hold them in tension with my desire to also be a better poet. It's a both/and situation.

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@lizzie I tend to think they are just tired of beating a dead horse.

I think I know what you mean. The poem is not getting better despite so much effort? You don't want to overburden the poet? Perhaps poems can be revised to death?