Yay! It’s day 3 of the 4 days I set aside for revising my current poetry collection. I did day 2 last week at Barnes & Noble, and it was a tough one. I was trying to work in setting and sensory words, without making my poems any longer (I spent revision day 1 trying to get them as short as possible). I worked on all 34 poems (some with more success than others!) during about 6.5 straight hours. Was I sore from sitting there! At home, I get up, walk around, let the dog out, etc. At B&N, my butt is glued to that chair because I can’t leave my laptop and wander around. Enforced focus:>)
Today, I’m trying to add more physical details of the animals I’m writing about, again without making the poems longer. I love poems that are bursting with concrete words, sensory details, luscious sounds–Rebecca Kai Dotlich is a master of that. That condensing–getting rid of every bit of flluff and making every single word work magic–is my favorite aspect of poetry. But it ain’t easy.