Poem Editing!

This week, I want to share with you my process of editing a poem. This poem is one that I wrote, and I think I actually like it. The poem is special to me, for a few reasons. Not only is it one of the first poems that I can think of that I have written that I actually feel proud, but the topic is dear to my heart.

Writing this poem did not just happen. It took the use of different strategies and multiple phases of revision. My original piece came from Georgia Heard's six room poem strategy (Heard, 1999). I wrote about this strategy in an earlier post when this poem was in its beginning phases, but I will give you a quick recap. This strategy has the writer divide the paper into six "rooms." Each room is a has the writer compose different pieces that help make the poem. I had a room where I described the setting, a room for sounds, a room for what I saw, a room for how I felt, a room for a question, and a room where I repeated the same phrase three times. These are the rooms suggested by Georgia Hear, but you can add some, take some out, or make up your own (Heard, 1999). After thinking about my favorite childhood park, this is what I came up with!

After I constructed my six rooms, it was time for me to put it into poem form. I did not really know how I wanted the poem to look yet, but it turned out to be a poem that seemed to take the form of a list.

Sorry about the sideways picture. It refuses to flip!

After allowing this version of my poem to sit for a little while, I decided that it had potential, but it was definitely not where I envisioned it. Georgia Heard talks about the use of spacing (Heard, 1999). Seeing as my poem, at this point was just a bunch of lines all pushed together, I knew my next step was to add spacing. This, I decided, would probably assist readers in following the poem and knowing which places were meant to be more dramatic. I also experiemented with line breaks and making my phrases sound less like complete sentences, other strategies that Heard ssuggests (Heard, 1999).

You can also see a few arrows on this poem. After writing it, I had a conference with a fellow writer who helped me begin to plan for my next drafting steps. Keep reading to find out what she suggested I do!

Once my poem reached this version of itself, I knew that it would be one that I had to keep. However, I still saw potential for improvement. During class, I conferred with a fellow poet and explored poetry stations. She suggested that I make the location more clear and test out a strategy I have come to love! To make the location more clear, I added a few words. For example I came out and said that it was a pier that my feet were hanging off of. I added a stanza that adds to what I am hearing, while allowing readers to know that the poem is set in a park. The biggest change that I made was that I moved the last stanzas to the beginning of the poem, more strategies suggested by Georgia Heard (Heard, 1999). Moving paragraphs and stanza in my writing is something that I never pictured myself being able to do. However, in my writing over the past few weeks, I have tested it out more and more. I absolutely LOVE it! Here is what I came up with. There are a few edits I decided would be made in the next draft, which you can see my thoughts of in this version, as well.

With my previous version completed, I spent some more time reading through my poem and thinking about what might add to the quality of my poem. Seeing as I ended up moving both of my last two stanzas to the beginning of the poem, I felt that it needed something to close it up. I ended up writing one last stanza, which you can actually see on the previous draft, to wrap everything up. I moved the lines in which just a few of my words were on, and I decided it was time to see what the poem looked like written neatly. This is the final version of my poem!

References

Heard, G. (1999). Awakening the Heart. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.