Poetry: The Creativity of Revision

Reworking a poem can be an extension of the creative act, one that has the potential to deepen our experience of the hand-in-hand relationship between the generative impulse and the revising one.

For award-wining poet Carol Moldaw, this subject is second nature, and in our first group meeting, she presents her initial thoughts on the revision strategy of finding the poem’s core. To that end, we discuss poems submitted by participants in advance of the workshop, which everyone will have already seen.

The following sessions focus on additional strategies for revision. We consider different methods of engaging with our material, from consciously developing metaphor to finding a poem’s music and working with lineation to create lyric tension. In addition to learning how to create and employ stanzaic forms, we also address the importance of honing the opening and conclusion of a poem.

In each session participants have the choice to present new poems or ongoing revisions of work they have already shared. We finish the workshop with a group reading.

If you have some experience writing poetry and wish to extend and enhance your practice, join Carol for an opportunity to reveal and revel in the joy, imaginative license, and maker’s satisfaction that the revision process can spark.