Now that National Poetry Writing Month is over and many of us have thirty fresh poem drafts, it’s time to start thinking about revision. This morning I scoured the internet for revision techniques and found a lot of useful information and some worksheets. We want to approach each poem with fresh eyes, so I recommend starting with the draft you wrote on April first, or practicing up on some older poems to let your new drafts rest a bit. Here are the resources I enjoyed the most:
Blog Posts
The Art of Targeted Revision by Sandra Beasley from Poets & Writers
On revision from Molly Spencer (there are four posts in her revision series)
How to Revise Your Poetry from Poetry Teatime
5 Ways to Revise Poems from Writer’s Digest
13 Ways to Revise a Poem from Freesia McKee
Magma poetry’s 25 Rules for Editing Poems
Worksheets
Poetry Self-Evaluation worksheet from Scholastic
Creative Exercises: Revising and Building by John Chapman
I like a lot of these ideas. Today, I’m going to start reading through the poetry collages I created last year and play with some of Molly Spencer’s “radical revision” techniques. I hope you find some useful ideas in all these resources that inspire your revision process.
And don’t forget to read a ton of poetry while you’re at it.
