Poetry Challenge #138-I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
“I can’t write five words but that I change seven”—Dorothy Parker
“I love revisions...We can't go back and revise our lives but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest.”—Katherine Paterson.
Poetry Challenge #138
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!
One of the best things to do to make a poem better is revise it.
First, read your poem aloud. If it sounds good, reads well, great! Now try to make it even better by doing the following:
Can you replace weak words with more visual words? Words like “that” or “was” or “is” can usually be replaced with something stronger. Try to make every word count.
Listen to the sounds of each word. Is there a sound that’s repeated in your poem? Can you replace words to add more of that sound?
Read your poem very slowly. Pause at the end of each line. Is that the best word to end on? Play with your line lengths and with punctuation. Make readers read it the way you want them to.
Repeat these steps until you’re satisfied and then read the poem once more aloud.
Happy revising!
“Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change”—Sir Richard Branson
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge MORE THAN 4 YEARS ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.