poet, graphic designer, and writing coach Lindsay Lusby on how writing and revising lives in our bodies, finding the right form for your poems, and keeping your first draft energy as you edit
Wow, there are so many excellent revision tips in here! I was just struggling to revise a rather dense, prose-poem-like piece last night, so this is especially helpful: "When in doubt, I start with couplets. And if that doesn’t feel quite right after I’ve tried it out, then I’ll experiment with longer stanza sizes—tercets or quatrains. But my personal preference is generally for shorter stanzas because this allows us to insert more air or white space into the body of the poem, meaning that we avoid big blocks of text that, at times, can feel a bit impenetrable visually." I am saving this and several of her other tips about line breaks, and reading work aloud. Thank you Lindsay!
Wow, there are so many excellent revision tips in here! I was just struggling to revise a rather dense, prose-poem-like piece last night, so this is especially helpful: "When in doubt, I start with couplets. And if that doesn’t feel quite right after I’ve tried it out, then I’ll experiment with longer stanza sizes—tercets or quatrains. But my personal preference is generally for shorter stanzas because this allows us to insert more air or white space into the body of the poem, meaning that we avoid big blocks of text that, at times, can feel a bit impenetrable visually." I am saving this and several of her other tips about line breaks, and reading work aloud. Thank you Lindsay!