βIβll just list ways you can accomplish this [radical revision] when you are working on a poem. Dig up some old ones and see what happens (itβs best to use old ones to start, as you are no longer emotionally attached to them): 1) If someone tells you you have too much in your poem, add more. 2) If someone tells you you have too little in your poem, take out more. 3) Take the last line and make it the first. Rewrite from there, keeping whatever works in whatβs already there. 4) Expand your poem: add subordinate clauses using who, when, until, if, while, before, after, as, since, whenever, where, etc. Also use coordinating conjunctions: and/and/and; or/or/or; but/but/but (think of it as a list that keeps going). So, for example: βThe man, who once loved me, who once told me___________, and __________, and ____________, and ______________β¦β so youβre pushing the syntax and the comfort of the line/sentence. Actual listing - must make a qualitative progression (light to dark, big to small, for example); canβt be random. Push the list, see what you come up with. Repetition - repeat what you just said. Maybe repeat it again. Contradiction - say the opposite of what you just said. 5) Compress your poem: Negation: use the word βnot.β When you do this you get both the thing named and its absence. You can also use other words that negate - βunβ; βneverβ; βlessβ; 'without.β Neologisms: (what I like to refer to as kennings - used in Anglo Saxon poetry): put words together to create a heightened adjective, a metaphor: 'the shutmouth mother,β 'the sorrowfence.β Possessives: use possessives: 'how the sunβs poultice draws on my inflammationβ (Plath) or 'the windβs rebukeβ and 'the leavesβ exhalationβ (Brigit Pegeen Kelly). Shift the parts of speech: Use a noun as a verb or vice versa. Use an adjective as a verb, etc. Cut and paste: radically rearrange your poem. Find new combinations! EXERCISE: Go over your poem and underline any lines you feel jump out with lots of energy. Pick three of those lines. Make one the first line of a new poem, one a middle line, and one the last line. Now, using some of the above strategies (minimum 3), write a new poem.β
β Catherine Barnett, βRadical Revisionβ
