Tuesday, May 17, 2011

on improvement

That these days, when I finish a poem, I no longer even want to mail it off to someone in a fit of euphoria and madness.

That I actually print poems out and leave them lying around so that I can pick them up by chance and look at how they look and sound elsewhere than on a screen.

That sometimes - though still not often enough - I can bring myself to take apart a promissing poem completely in order to make it better. It still gives me the shudders but I know I'm capable of it, where earlier I would try to tinker and fix but never - never - entirely do it over.

1 comment:

km said...

Point #3. I wish I knew that in high school. My masterpieces on the teenage experience might have improved, if only a little.