Revision Strategies

It is natural to feel like your work is bad--that it sucks. I have yet to find a writer, poet, or artist who does not feel this way. Revision is a way to realize that everything can be changed on the page, and that discovery is found in play:

Try different line breaks with your poem

Try different stanzas

Try playing with cliche and common phrases

 I come unrepaired

Try negating or contradicting what is said before

Riff off of each previous line, borrowing a word, antonym, or image

my time at Robinson Middle School
in the middle of my parents' divorce
thankful he was diverted

Try moving lines around, like this example:

I wished for a way

but I had to return Monday

through Friday

my cracks showing

.

I move the third line to the last

.

I wished for a way

but I had to return Monday

my cracks showing

by Friday