Revision (1)

Revising means more than trimming, which can sometimes strip too much of a poem’s energy. That’s why early drafts, messy with the freshness of detail, are worth hanging onto, even when a poem appears done. Words act on each other, and from those earliest versions, wonderful new connections can sprout that only later one realizes how to incorporate. How much further a poem might have gone, if those initial phrasings were still on hand to relight the imagination.