Lesson 6 | What kind of editing does your poetry need right now?

Growing through the honeymoon phase of writing, poems that seem bad but actually rock + build your own poetry "Machine"

This is so cute @Mariam Chagelishvili

Class 6 of 8 from Shannan Mann’s Forever Workshop “Hot and Heavy: Writing Love & Sex Poems that will Actually Get Published and Have Readers Begging for More”

The Honeymoon Phase post-marriage is usually made up of feeling utterly gaga over your beloved. You can’t see any faults or flaws and god forbid someone else points anything out – no fucking way, your forever-love is totally, utterly, extremely adverb-ly perfect. GOT IT?!

NO. Now, you come here and listen to me. I know that new poem you’ve written might feel like your baby (you know, popsong baby), but we’re gonna make it grow the fuck up. (Said with love, duh). 

Alright ta-da – this lesson’s about editing! (Jazz handsss).

Imitation vs Inspiration

When I’m all out of stuff to edit and just have a fresh white page flickering back at me, I can get a bit antsy and angsty. So the way I try to counteract this mild mental paralysis is to have a set of “reference” books to read through and then jot down notes and words and ideas. These reference books, obvs., aren’t actual think reference books but in fact poetry collections or anthologies that spark my imagination at any given time.

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You might wonder, with all this cross-reading and hybrid-writing going on, isn’t there a risk of that inspiration curdling to imitation? And the honest-to-god blunt answer is…yes. Absolutely. And that’s fine. In the beginning, off-the-radar, under-the-table, open-secretly totally okay. Because, as you’ll notice from my photo there, I’m not reading just stacks of books by the same poet. I’ve got anthologies, collections, lit mags, and even…yea…that looks like a horror novel. Point being, mix up your pile of inspiration and then that way, even if some of it begins to resemble imitation, it would be directly shoplifting from a particular poet. Plus, as poets, we’re all thieves. That’s kind of our thing. Heck – as writers, artists, our whole creative ecosystem is founded on some light and fun witchy thievery (Steal Like an Artist anyone?)! 

Now, after you’ve got words on that page, what’s next! Never writing again for at least 10 days! No!! Editing, yayyy.

Impressions vs Editing