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A LESSON ON REVISING POEMS

by David B. Axelrod

Reproduced below is the first poem ever written by Ms. Sandra Martin, a high-level technical writer and administrator for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta . As part of a creative writing exercise, while traveling in Egypt , she sat and observed the scene around her and wrote as follows: 

Here along the Nile , half a world away from my home...

     ..... we're enjoying the sunshine.

You sit in your burka, probably worried about becoming too warm in this heat.

I sit in my swimsuit, definitely worried about burning in this sun.

     .....we treasure our children.

You laugh as your young son splashes here beside this pool.

I smile thinking of my grown son preparing for his wedding.

     .....we walk in the same shoes.

You wear the same sandal I've got at home in my closet.

I wonder if my flip-flops are at your house.

     .....we're so much alike.

Your dark Arab son plays with someone's blonde American daughter.

I deplore the politics that divide us.

 I wonder what you'd choose to wear sitting beside the pool in my country.

Do you wonder the same?

 REVISED the observation become a very strong poem:

SHERATON, CAIRO  

Here along the Nile we share this pool

in sunshine, you in your burka too warm,

I in my swimsuit worried about burning.

You laugh as your young son splashes

beside you. I smile thinking of my

grown son preparing for his wedding.

You wear the same sandals home in my closet.

I wonder if my flip-flops are at your house.

Your black-haired son plays with someone's

blonde American daughter. It's only

politics that divide us.

LESSON ON REVISION:

How did the poem emerge from the draft? To begin with, the description was rich enough  in detail to make become everything a modern, imagistic poem could be. It has the qualities which define contemporary poetry. It is a first person account which therefore sounds all the more"real" or"true." It is very visual (imagistic) capturing both the setting and the characters at that moment. The length is about what  modern poems tend to be (twelve to twenty lines, though there is no specific rule for that ). Finally, it is more concerned with content than with following a set form. It doesn't rhyme or count the beats in a line. It isn't a jingle! It's a moment captured in vivid language. The sum of all the words is a certain feeling which the author then chooses to express in a final summary statement. That abstractions or little editorial remark at the end only works because it is earned with convincing details that prepare the reader for the ending.

In revising, I used certain principles that you, too, should use when editing your own and other student workshop pieces.

1. I took out unneeded words. A prhyme example of that would be all the lines that are statements preceded by dots. Those"editorial" comments are more place markers for what the author is thinking. The beauty of the poem is that the description conveys those thoughts. As a rule good writing shows. It doesn't have to tell!  Can you find the logic in the other edits? Why did I cut words out. Can you see how nothing is really lost by these edits? The picture is just as clear. The message ultimately is the same. Think of writing a poem as something like taking out a classified ad. You have to pay for every word. You wouldn't want to pad the ad. When you edit your poem, sell me what you can with the least words!

2. I made lines end using a device called"enjambment." That is, I tried to first see that each line had some genuine meaning of its own so that a line in a poem is like a sentence in prose: one idea per line/sentence. Then, I like breaking a line at a moment that might leave the reader"hanging, " or wondering what will come next.  For a fraction of a second between the end of one line and the start of the next there is a tension created by that pause. There may be some pleasing ambiguity, even an other level of meanings or possibilities created by breaking a line so that one idea first comes to mind before another is completed or resolved.

3.  Don't be afraid to change the order of your original lines and certainly don't be afraid to add a little for the purpose of making something clearer or making a transition.

Sandra Martin, subsequently, was invited to read this poem by the renowned poet, George Wallace, on his radio show on WUSB. (Listen in on Thursday evenings at 6 p.m. at 90.1 FM or on-line at www.wusb.fm ) GOOD GOING, SANDY !