How do you revise? Are you methodical about it, or haphazard? I’ve read that some people never revise. They write one draft and let that one sit. It’s their poem and they’re not getting another one. That’s not recommended for most of us. Rarely do writers, poets too, get it right on the first time.

I highly recommend revision. You can always go back to the first draft if you have to. But revision allows you to see your poem from a brand new perspective.

There is a funny anecdote about Oscar Wilde, who said, “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” It just goes to show that revision can be a grueling process. Ernest Hemingway once said all writing is rewriting. Great writers know what mediocre writers don’t: The best way to polish a manuscript is to throw it away and start over.

That last part may be literal and may not be. It isn’t a one size fits all T-shirt. It is a principle and like all principles, it’s only true sometimes. I know for myself, I’ve been known to write a poem and get it right the first time; other poems, I can revise and revise and revise and never get it right. Most poems, however, require revision after revision until I get them right. Sometimes it’s two revisions and sometimes it’s twenty two. Nevertheless, I revise. Do you?