[Bill Dyes]

I doubt if I could present any subject to "General Talk" that has not already been verbally shredded down to its quantum particulars but I would like perhaps to initiate a discussion. I've never initiated anything in "General Talk and I'm pretty scared, but I am now raising my reclusive hand into this public air to ask you all a few questions. Do you think there is such a thing as an extreme revisionist, as in a writer who after some 40 years of writing poetry (not publishing, mind you, or ever trying to) just revising over and over the same less than 100 pages of total ouput. When does the extreme revisionist become bad for himself and his poetry or tiresome to a workshop community like this one. Maybe workshopping serves only as a pusher to the revisionist junkie. Of course everyone knows that you stop revising once excellence has been achieved so, I mean, how can revision really amount to a problem for anyone? Does the history of poetry have infamous examples of irrational revisionists or have you yourselves exhibited or experienced such a personality? Do any of you have poems that you have looked at after multiple revisions and still never seem able to arrive at the point where you say 'enough is enough'. Does it matter if it's no longer recognizable as the same poem just as long as it's a better one. The fat bullseye on my forehead I noticed this morning as I was shaving has no relevance to any ensuing discussion.

[John Whitworth]

Edward Fitzgerald springs to mind. He really wrote only one poem that anybody cares about and spent the rest of his poetic life revising it. There are five separate versions of the Rubaiyat, though most people think the first is the best. However, many of the revisions are well worth having.

And then there was Wordsworth's Prelude. He wrote it in 1805 and made not the slightest attempt to publish it for forty-five years. For the rest of his life he revised it and the revised version was published in 1850. I don't know (somebody will) whether he was alive then. Sometimes the revisions are better and sometimes they are worse.

I must admit I wouldn't have the strength of mind to behve as you have, but that doesn'tmean you are wrong. Most of what all of us write will be forgotten, possibly already is.

Not a poet, but isn't it true that Salinger neverstopped writing. He just stopped publishing.

[Maryann Corbett]

Bill, I can't remember the exact words, but Auden wrote something, in the introduction to his Collected, to the effect that he had declined to revise poems that were more than three or four years old. He claimed that after that length of time the poet has probably lost touch with the original impulse of the poem.

[Bill Dyes]

Can the orignal impulse be preserved somewhat if the revisions are faithfully kept and on-line workshopping might tend to develop a kind of collective memory of the original impluse spread throught the various critiques referred back to. Revisiing a translation or a large work might be a different case. Isn't "Leaves of Grass' considerered Whitman's single work. Does anyone know how much it was revived by him during his lifetime?

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

he had declined to revise poems that were more than three or four years old. He claimed that after that length of time the poet has probably lost touch with the original impulse of the poem.

I'm the wrong person to answer this question. I lose touch with mine after three or four hours. After that, it feels like someone else wrote it. But this may be why I don't get upset by workshop suggestions: the poem isn't mine any more.

But I think it's wrong to make value statements or draw inferences about reality. It's got nothing to do with poetry, and far more to do with character. I'll weed 90 percent of the garden, but leave a patch where bugs and milkweed can thrive. I don't sand between coats of varnish when I'm putting a finish on a piece of furniture. I'm just impatient to get it out of the shop so I can make the next thing.

Others judge me harshly for this, and say I have no appreciation of craft. Perhaps they're right. And I respect the people who can create a beautiful mirror smooth french polish finish on a walnut table top. They enjoy the process, and they enjoy the result. More power to them. It's only a problem when they say everyone should believe as they do, or when they draw inferences about general reality and assume their skill enables them to make value statements. I wouldn't suggest my practice to anyone else. It's odd that people so often suggest their practices to me...

So if you enjoy that side of the process, I find a certain beauty in that enjoyment. It's something I admire, even if I can't do it well myself...

Thanks,

Bill

[Bill Dyes]

The need to write and the need to revise would seem to derive from the same impulse. The need to publish might quickly follow shortly after. But with age the need to publish has relaxed to a great extent. But in the last 7 or 8 years, I have written only piece that could be called new. And since retiring the need to revise has become almost overwhelming.

[Bill Dyes]

The need to write and the need to revise would seem to derive from the same impulse. The need to publish might quickly follow shortly after. But with age the need to publish has relaxed to a great extent, for me at least. In the last 7 or 8 years I have written only one piece that could be called new. And since retiring the need to revise has become almost overwhelming. I am well aware that others who write or who even do not necessarily write but who consider themselves excellent readers sometime think they have a right to shape or improve the offerings you make. Maybe that's what you mean Bill, when you say "It only a problem when they say everyone should believe as they do, or when they draw inferences about general reality and assume their skill enables them to make value statements". But it's all part of any writing community and although posting a revision and then becoming non-interactive would be rather pointless. In the end everyone and their ideas seem more bearable when you know what is being considered will be shortly reforming itself anyway.

[Roger Slater]

What's wrong with moving on from the "original impulse" of the poem? Why is the original impulse sacred? As a reader, I really don't care whether the poem reflects the poet's original impulse. I just want it to be a good poem, and if the poet had a better impulse than his original impulse a few years down the line, that's fine with me.

The reason to revise is because we are not satisfied with what we have written and we feel we can possibly improve it and be more satisfied. This is obvious, isn't it? Didn't Yeats revise his poems all his life, and, in the view of most people, consistently improve them?

It's hard to make a general rule about what is too much revision. It depends on the person. If the revisions aren't succeeding, and become merely a way to spin one's wheels while not writing other poems (or doing other things) that are more worthwhile, then it's a problem. But if the time spent revising doesn't halt our progress in other areas, and it improves our poems, what could be wrong?

[Tim Murphy]

John Crowe Ransom revised some youthful masterpieces in old age, not to good effect. You can see both versions in his Collected and draw your own conclusions. So far I have revised a few poems after periodical publication in preparation for book publication. Very few. Three of the poems in Wilbur's last two books had sat on the shelf for fifty years. He just wasn't satisfied until the revisions came decades from the original impulse.

[Catherine Chandler]

I could go on for ages on this topic, but suffice it to say, in my own experience, and for what it's worth, I've reviewed, revised and rewritten many poems, some even after they'd been published. I've also thrown lots away, poems I thought were the cat's meow when I'd "finished" them. As for the space between the original impulse and the final version of the poem, two of my own saw an expanse of forty years and multiple versions/forms, and another not a written-down word for thirty-three, when the words finally were divorced (somewhat) from the pain. It's all relative.