Revision Process

[Lizzie]

I'm sorry, Lizzie, but by and large, Shem is right. I'm no genius, and me being in the ground 50 years ain't gonna change that.  I think you are deluding yourself if you imagine yourself the next Emily Dickinson.

Ok. My point was that none of us get to decide who the next great poets will be. History will decide that. I never said that it was going to be me.

Personally, I like Rowan's work.

I like the idea of being able to entertain dreams -- I don't see how that's such a bad thing. However unrealistic, sometimes one needs a goal and something to strive for to get through the tough times. I think it's harsh to dash those as a matter of course. Dreams are personal, and to each his own.

Enough now.

[RiverNotch]

Wait, isn't saying "you're shit, you're nothing, you're insignificant" a little much distant from saying "you're no genius"?

[Lizzie]

Wait, isn't saying "you're shit, you're nothing, you're insignificant" a little much distant from saying "you're no genius"?

I retract.

[Achebe]

I went it alone most of my life. Since hanging out here and putting some poems under the microscope and thinking a lot harder about other people's poems, I find that when I go it alone, as we all do at the birth of a poem anyway, the result is more appealing to me, I catch a better way to say it before it hits the page and I feel like my reach is a little longer. I like what the workshopping process has done for and to me. I write some dead stuff with good technique now but I always wrote an unknown percentage of shit. I think my strong ones are stronger now.

Ok, so workshopping doesn't keep you from writing crap, it just makes you more able to capitalize on the good stuff. That makes sense. And, as for writing dead things well, I say: Meeeeee too

---

 it is pretty clear that none of us are poetic geniuses

Only history gets to decide this, 50 years after we're all dead.

no, i hate to break it to you, you're not a genius, not now and not in 50 years time.
it is actually strange, i feel like you might genuinely take offence at me telling you you're not a genius. what were you saying about egotistical?  

anyway, my point is, if you want to write great poetry in this lifetime and you have the humility and self-awareness to acknowledge that you do not have a preternatural gift for writing you could do worse than experimenting with a few suggested edits. . . in fact, you could do a lot worse, you could try imagining you are a tortured genius in a world that doesn't understand you, writing by yourself, for yourself. . . and look where that's got poor old rowen. if anyone could benefit from accepting a few suggestions, it's that boy; he can barely write a coherent sentence and yet extols the virtues of self-editing!

anyway, thanks again. good discussion. learnt a lot. cheers big ears!

I have read some phenomenal poems on this forum, so if the writers will never be known outside a small circle it's more a reflection on the general high standard of writing in the public today. I don't think that Shakespeare's sonnets would be read if they were not from a cultural totem of the English speaking world. And had Emily Dickinson been a Yemeni or Kiwi poet, without the benefit of America's cultural marketing money power, where would she be today?
My point is not that everyone is an unrecognised genius, but that a number of 'great' writers from history were fairly average by today's standards.

This thread has got quite off topic.

So back on track: I think revisions get fewer comments because most of what needed to be said, has been said in the response to the original, and at least in my mind, it doesn't feel egalitarian to bump up a thread which already has a lot of comments on it, and which the commenting process always does, at the expense of more recent posts with fewer ones.

[ellajam]

Achebe wrote:

So back on track: I think revisions get fewer comments because most of what needed to be said, has been said in the response to the original, and at least in my mind, it doesn't feel egalitarian to bump up a thread which already has a lot of comments on it, and which the commenting process always does, at the expense of more recent posts with fewer ones.

I am one of those people that love every speck of crit I receive and am intrigued by the challenge to use it. I often try to stuff too many ideas into one piece so cuts and changes can have a major impact on the poem. If no one came back to comment on whether the poem improved or became totally devoid of life and sense I would be back on my own. Follow-up crit is vital for me, many of my threads are pages long as I poke the poor thing either to death or to a better poem.

I don't think a thread that gets a lot of posts takes anything away from new threads. If someone is moved to comment on one they may comment on two or three while they're at it. Being interested in one poem makes me want to read and comment on others, I sort of get into critique mode.

I do find it a little odd that sometimes a thread where the OP has never come back gets continual crit but I guess it's a poem people want to comment on anyway, but as long as the OP is active I don't see any problem with keeping it going. Some of those long threads where the poem goes through interesting changes are the ones I reread and continually learn from whether they're my own threads or the poems of other members. For me they're the treasures of the site whether it is me bumbling along or watching some of our better poets deftly pick just the right edits first time around.

[Todd]

So back on track: I think revisions get fewer comments because most of what needed to be said, has been said in the response to the original, and at least in my mind, it doesn't feel egalitarian to bump up a thread which already has a lot of comments on it, and which the commenting process always does, at the expense of more recent posts with fewer ones.

I think that's true. I think it's also true that after the first pass on a poem if the writer doesn't want to make certain changes that's their right as we're all just presenting options to consider (after we deal with basic technical errors). Further comment can either be seen as too heavy handed or warping to the result.

Or as milo said earlier, sometimes a revision has lost whatever first interested you in the poem.

[Lizzie]

 

I have read some phenomenal poems on this forum, so if the writers will never be known outside a small circle it's more a reflection on the general high standard of writing in the public today. I don't think that Shakespeare's sonnets would be read if they were not from a cultural totem of the English speaking world. And had Emily Dickinson been a Yemeni or Kiwi poet, without the benefit of America's cultural marketing money power, where would she be today?
My point is not that everyone is an unrecognised genius, but that a number of 'great' writers from history were fairly average by today's standards.

Yes. So well said, Achebe.

---

 
So back on track: I think revisions get fewer comments because most of what needed to be said, has been said in the response to the original, and at least in my mind, it doesn't feel egalitarian to bump up a thread which already has a lot of comments on it, and which the commenting process always does, at the expense of more recent posts with fewer ones.

This is a question I've had too, about how long to a continue a thread. If the feedback I receive is mostly punctuation/line cutting I'll probably do one revision and leave it. I feel like if I don't post a revision that people will think I didn't take their advice seriously and not post in the future. But, if the feedback involves a moderate to total rewrite (or if it involves making changes that I'm not confident about) then I feel like I really need continued critique to make sure that I'm going in the right direction.

[next]

-- When I first looked for poems to critique, I looked for poems that didn't have any critiques.
Maybe out of compassion, but probably because I thought my critique wouldn't look as bad if
there was nothing to compare it to.  I'm also lazy and tend to look at the top of the list -- and
come to think of it, smart phones can't help but exaggerate this tendency.

-- It seems to me that workshopping could also give you feedback on what readers perceive,
what they react to, which readers like your stuff, and which of it appeals to them most. If you
like to write three types and readers tend to like number two... market research. Selecting readers
isn't too much different than reading lots of publications and finding ones that publish stuff you're
already writing. I'm guessing poetry must be the same as most other writing (except that the term
"market", sigh, has become a cruel metaphor.)

-- Writers who can turn out good copy in 15 minutes have usually spent 30 years practicing.

P.S. I just looked around and read a few of Rowan's poems. I loved them. But heavy use of
cognitive dissonance tends to polarize readers. If you like it, it tickles; if you don't, it itches.
(A quote from somebody famous whose name I've forgotten.)

[Lizzie]

Some of those long threads where the poem goes through interesting changes are the ones I reread and continually learn from whether they're my own threads or the poems of other members. For me they're the treasures of the site whether it is me bumbling along or watching some of our better poets deftly pick just the right edits first time around.

I agree. I like reading long threads with various comments and versions as a learning experience. I like to see how the person incorporated disparate/diverse opinions and made sense of it in a revision.

[shemthepenman]

Why do you have to drag everyone and everything down into the toilet with you?

I didn't go personal, you did.

yes, i admit, my comments about rowens were uncalled for. i got all over enthusiastic, but what can you do? i'm only human.
in a general way, i just wanted to highlight the irony that the kind of people who are adamantly opposed to suggestions tend to be those who could possibly benefit from them. and it just seems a bit obvious when the old 'i write for myself. . . you don't understand me' line is used that it is often in defence of bad art; not necessarily but it happens with enough regularity that one has to acknowledge the connection. don't get me wrong, the 'you don't understand' argument is applicable in a lot of cases [i mean, look at these fools who didn't like Batman v Superman! clearly, they didn't understand the complexity of that film*], it's just not applicable in a lot more.

with regards to me saying you're not a genius, i'm sorry to have dragged you down into my lowly toilet of ungeniusness. please forgive me. and that goes for any other geniuses that may have taken offence.

NOTE: all of my comments about editing have been purely academic. because, hopefully, we all intuitively know what the purpose and benefits of workshopping and editing are [for us nongeniuses, that is]. there shouldn't be any mystery about that for grown adults. i am not advocating perpetual editing nor editing based on a critique that is clearly counter to one's intentions or better judgement. yet, experimenting with those suggestions costs nothing. also, i did say way way way way back at the beginning, editing will be relative to the critique.
and lastly, i wasn't arguing against individualism or that you cannot make good judgements about your own work, but rather i was arguing against the extreme individualism rowens was advocating, i.e. categorical opposition to suggested editing. i actually think a philosophical argument could possibly be made for this position. i just don't think rowens was making it.

*was it freud who said, there's no such thing as a perfect crime because the criminal always has a subconscious desire to get caught

[Lizzie]

Why do you have to drag everyone and everything down into the toilet with you?

I didn't go personal, you did.

with regards to me saying you're not a genius, i'm sorry to have dragged you down into my lowly toilet of ungeniusness. please forgive me. and that goes for any other geniuses that may have taken offence.

What is wrong with you? I never said that I was a genius. I never even claimed that my poetry was even good.

Go bully someone else.

[billy]

okay guys, play nice this is the discussion forums not the pig's bum/admin

[shemthepenman]

Why do you have to drag everyone and everything down into the toilet with you?

I didn't go personal, you did.

with regards to me saying you're not a genius, i'm sorry to have dragged you down into my lowly toilet of ungeniusness. please forgive me. and that goes for any other geniuses that may have taken offence.

What is wrong with you? I never said that I was a genius. I never even claimed that my poetry was even good.

Go bully someone else.

oh shit, no, i didn't mean for it to be like that, for it to make you feel like that  double sorry. i know you weren't saying you are a genius or anything. but also, i think saying you aren't one is fairly innocuous and i didn't feel like the accusation of dragging everyone down the toilet was entirely justified--although, to be honest, you do have a good general point about that. anyway, i genuinely didn't mean to make you feel bad or whatnot. you see, this is a good example of life workshopping. i did something shitty, you called me out on it, i accept your criticism, and will try to edit my behaviour accordingly in future. and hopefully be a better person because of it. lizzi for the win

---

okay guys, play nice this is the discussion forums not the pig's bum/admin

yeah sorry. my fault. i got a bit overzealous with the discussion, there. anyway, i have nothing more to say about this other than it is 4:30 in the morning and i'm just about to snort 8 grams of cocain, drink 9 cups of coffee, eat a flaming hot peperami, and then go for a run round the block. woohooo!!!

[QDeathstar]

this topic makes me smile on the inside.

[Lizzie]

oh shit, no, i didn't mean for it to be like that, for it to make you feel like that  double sorry. i know you weren't saying you are a genius or anything. but also, i think saying you aren't one is fairly innocuous and i didn't feel like the accusation of dragging everyone down the toilet was entirely justified--although, to be honest, you do have a good general point about that. anyway, i genuinely didn't mean to make you feel bad or whatnot. you see, this is a good example of life workshopping. i did something shitty, you called me out on it, i accept your criticism, and will try to edit my behaviour accordingly in future. and hopefully be a better person because of it. lizzi for the win

---

okay guys, play nice this is the discussion forums not the pig's bum/admin

yeah sorry. my fault. i got a bit overzealous with the discussion, there. anyway, i have nothing more to say about this other than it is 4:30 in the morning and i'm just about to snort 8 grams of cocain, drink 9 cups of coffee, eat a flaming hot peperami, and then go for a run round the block. woohooo!!!

Ok. Breathing in. Breathing out.

Thank you, Shem. I appreciate and accept.

[Quixilated]

Coming to this discussion late, sorry if it's sort of over. But adding two cents just because.

I have a theory that the amount of crit a poem receives has nothing to do with how long you wait to revise. Some poems undergo many and immediate revisions and still get lots of comments, other poems are abandoned on the doorstep and left for us to rail against to no purpose, for the writer has disappeared like a ninja never to be seen again, and still that poem too will rake in the comments while a neighbor poem only gets one or two.

I think the poems that are easy to crit get more crit, it's a simple as that. And I don't mean by easy that the poem itself is simple, nor that it has lots of problems. It seems more that the "popular" ones walk a very wobbly line of good enough that they are generally liked, but not intimidatingly complex where half of us don't understand what we're reading but won't admit it, and in addition, has one or two obvious nits for the reader to pick, but not so many problems that it would take too much time and effort to suggest it all.

If a poem is relatively flawless, it's hard to make a comment, for in the workshops you can't really just say, "this is awesome, don't change it." (When I feel that way, sometimes I pm the author because I don't want them to think the lack of crit means it's not worth looking at.) Also, if it's just, well, riddled with problems, then that too is hard to crit for it would take so much of your own time just to help make it merely less bad. (Not saying I've seen any particular work that fits this, just making a hypothetical point). Also, if it's a good poem, but, let's face it, over our heads, (for some here are beginners and some are experts) well the beginners are going to read it like a million times to soak it up and appreciate it, but when you barely grasp layer number one, and you see someone else commenting on layers two and three, it just doesn't seem wise to offer suggestions. So, that poem too, though excellent, won't gather as many comments. Therefore, the number of comments and suggestions should not be how you gauge whether your poem is good or bad or worthy, or that you just waited too long or didn't wait long enough. Really terrible poems and perfect/excellent poems alike could receive equal numbers of comments.

Now with that said, I do like to read a poem many times before offering a comment, and if the poet makes a revision the next day, I have to start over, or feel the suggestions I was working on are now moot and wont' leave the comment I was working up to. So maybe wait a short time before revising to allow the people who like to chew on it a little longer time to respond.

Anyway, that was probably too much rambling to follow, sorry, sometimes the chatter escapes before I can put it back on the leash. *sigh*

[Lizzie]

I write for myself, because it's something I enjoy doing. I like writing things I like, which is why I post here, because I think posting here helps me improve. I want to make something I like - I won't make an edit I disagree with just because a bunch of people suggest something.

Yes, this is my constant struggle. I want to like my work when it's done and feel like it reflects my original vision, so it's hard sometimes to make a change even though everyone else is saying do it. I usually do make the change because I'm new and I don't trust that I make good choices. It's a hard process with a lot of different variables.

---

Coming to this discussion late, sorry if it's sort of over. But adding two cents just because.    

I have a theory that the amount of crit a poem receives has nothing to do with how long you wait to revise.  Some poems undergo many and immediate revisions and still get lots of comments, other poems are abandoned on the doorstep and left for us to rail against to no purpose, for the writer has disappeared like a ninja never to be seen again, and still that poem too will rake in the comments while a neighbor poem only gets one or two.  

I think the poems that are easy to crit get more crit, it's a simple as that.  And I don't mean by easy that the poem itself is simple, nor that it has lots of problems.  It seems more that the "popular" ones walk a very wobbly line of good enough that they are generally liked, but not intimidatingly complex where half of us don't understand what we're reading but won't admit it, and in addition, has one or two obvious nits for the reader to pick, but not so many problems that it would take too much time and effort to suggest it all.  

If a poem is relatively flawless, it's hard to make a comment, for in the workshops you can't really just say, "this is awesome, don't change it." (When I feel that way, sometimes I pm the author because I don't want them to think the lack of crit means it's not worth looking at.)  Also, if it's just, well, riddled with problems, then that too is hard to crit for it would take so much of your own time just to help make it merely less bad. (Not saying I've seen any particular work that fits this, just making a hypothetical point).  Also, if it's a good poem, but, let's face it, over our heads, (for some here are beginners and some are experts) well the beginners are going to read it like a million times to soak it up and appreciate it, but when you barely grasp layer number one, and you see someone else commenting on layers two and three, it just doesn't seem wise to offer suggestions.  So, that poem too, though excellent, won't gather as many comments.  Therefore, the number of comments and suggestions should not be how you gauge whether your poem is good or bad or worthy, or that you just waited too long or didn't wait long enough.  Really terrible poems and perfect/excellent poems alike could receive equal numbers of comments.  

Now with that said, I do like to read a poem many times before offering a comment, and if the poet makes a revision the next day, I have to start over, or feel the suggestions I was working on are now moot and wont' leave the comment I was working up to.  So maybe wait a short time before revising to allow the people who like to chew on it a little longer time to respond.    

Anyway, that was probably too much rambling to follow, sorry, sometimes the chatter escapes before I can put it back on the leash. *sigh*

So well said. So well. Thank you for this insight, it makes a lot of sense. And, I see what you're talking about waiting a little bit to make revisions, that is a very valid idea. Will do. Thanks for commenting!!!

[Leanne]

Another thought on the original point -- I often won't keep commenting after revisions have been made so as not to monopolise dialogue as this can dissuade other people from sharing their opinions on a piece. Sometimes if someone is choosing a poem to critique, especially a new member, they will choose the ones with very little input as opposed to ones where it could feel like they're butting in on a conversation.

And on the other side of the coin, there are poems I don't really want to return to because they have, in fact, failed to hold my interest. There are some poems I will return to over and over again even if no revisions have been made (the poems in the Spotlight, for example) because they were so beautifully written that each time I visit them I come away with something new. I always check though, because sometimes with revisions the poem that was initially pretty ordinary can be lifted to something quite amazing. Some of the poems in the Spotlight have started that way.