Comments on: “Cocktail Dress”: anatomy of a revision

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:38:13 +0000

Hi Barbara – Glad you found this helpful. I too rarely save drafts since weaning myself off pen and paper some ten years ago, but for this poem I did, for some reason — and I’m glad, because it would’ve been hard to write the post otherwise! I just added a number to the end of file name each time I saved. But since I’m using WordPress, older edits of a page are automatically saved, as well, and I can revert to an earlier version at any time.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:42:27 +0000

Thanks for including this. It’s helpful to see something of your process, even after the fact. I’m constantly learning things from the poets who post at rwp. My training is forty years rusty.
I usually revise, when I do, at the computer, and don’t hang onto the drafts and am wondering how to change that. When a version is gone, so is its potential as a fresh beginning. (you wonder how plant breeders can throw away all but one or two lines from every generation’s sports and oddities)

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:38:21 +0000

Hearing that something I’ve written has made someone take a renewed interest in poetry is just about the most gratifying feedback I can get (though I’m glad you like the poems, too). Thank you.

By: zoe

zoe — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:32:57 +0000

wow! what a thought process that went into this writing–and each step was, in my opinion, an excellent poem. although i like very much your “final” version, the second-to-last one has a lot of impact, it’s an excellent poem. reading this made me appreciate poetry again…it’s been a while..

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:02:16 +0000

Oh jesus. How about “Taters,” then?

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:58:51 +0000

Tate-ics, to be precise. Since the suffix in alcoholic is “-ic,” not “-aholic.”

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:22:48 +0000

Thanks, Peter. You’re right — I don’t have too hard a time jettisoning good lines that don’t fit a poem. And usually I don’t save them in any way, either. I just figure there’s more where that came from.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:40:43 +0000

I love your inner debate, found in your next-to-last paragraph, about first drafts and revisions. I go through the same questions about my writing.

I like the way the debate plays out in your approach to revising “Cocktail Dress.” Anyone who finds reason to give up fine lines like this:

I’ve seen much too much
of that too little.

is serious about revision, I say.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:37:16 +0000

Hi Laurie – Thanks for your kind words. Revision is kind of fun, I guess. I think I revise a lot in my head, which might be why writing first drafts is generally so intense for me.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:30:48 +0000

“Metacognitive” is a great word, Peter, and thanks for the mention of that book — I hadn’t heard of it.

Ordinarily, my approach with posting a revision is to overwrite the original post with it, but that does short-change readers — especially those who’ve already left comments responding to an earlier draft. Also, the practice is somewhat controversial among bloggers, many of whom feel that any change in a published post should be restricted to a duly labled update. It would be great of blog posts were like wiki pages, with a “history” tab linking to earlier versions, and since WordPress already saves multiple versions of each post, they’re already in the database and could probably be summoned up with some fancy code and theme hacks. It would probably slow down site load times considerably, though — you’d have to use a caching plugin.