Writing Tips

How to Revise Poetry 101

- a helpful list of questions to ask yourself, or things to do, when revising a poem

Why should the reader care about the poem? What is there about the poem to get the reader to read it from beginning to end?

Where is the emotional core of the poem? Is it clear?

Where is the “edge of the poem?” What is the now occurrence that impulses this poem?

There are two parts to a poem – what is conveyed and how it is conveyed. Make sure you have both and that both are interesting (i.e. don’t have a series of images without a purpose, nor a stated purpose without a way to ground it to our reality)

Is there a question that can be asked within the poem to help guide the reader?

Who is the audience for the poem? Is this audience clear?

Is this poem personal – only for you or a selected few, or meant everyone, if possible? What details should you include or not include accordingly?

What is the diction used? Should it be lowered or elevated for the audience?

Is the title a filler title, or does the title do work?

Read the poem out loud and mark the places where you trip up, slow down, or speed up contrary to the feeling of the poem. Those areas need work.

Mark what lines are the best lines of your poem. Why are the other lines not as effective? Could they be? If not, why not?

Re-type (or re-write by hand) the entire poem, instead of merely adding in corrections.

Put the poem back into a paragraph and then read it out loud. Where do the line breaks naturally occur in your mind? 

Look at the space of the poem on the page – what is the effect of how it’s presented?

Can stanzas be used to further increase the effect of the poem? Do you need stanzas?

What areas of the poem need to stand out? How much do you use rhyme, alliteration, or other poetic devices?

What areas of the poem are in danger of being cliché or sentimental?

For each telling line, is there a way that the same could be shown?

Is the ending inconclusive?

Can the poem be done in a different way – does is need to be so long or, conversely, so short?

Does the poem need to begin where it begins or end where it ends?

Don’t hang on to your “little darlings” – if a line or metaphor needs to be cut, do it.

Take a careful look at each verb, adjective, and noun – are they the expected words, or are they unexpected, unusual, or fresh?