Since I just started a new position at work and am always behind even on a normal day, I am weeks behind here even though a writer I respect wrote up her revision technique and even provided photos. This delay is a whole new level of lazy for me, but you all now get to enjoy learning Kristen’s revision technique without waiting any longer!

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Revision Technique—Cutting Up

by Kristen Baum DeBeasi

Here’s a technique I used to revise a poem that was mired in too muchness. My first draft lacked focus. Its title was one thing, while its subject was another thing and the idea that emerged was a third, somewhat messy thing. But I wanted this poem to work. I wanted to pay tribute to my high school English teacher, who was the original inspiration for the poem. 

So, based on a recent workshop prompt (given by Moon Tide Press’s Eric Morago) I went to work. 

My first step was to reformat the poem, setting the document to double space and the letter size to approximately 16 (if you try this, use your discretion). You may like slightly larger or smaller letters depending on line length or other variables). For me, I chose a letter size comparable to the size on my fridge magnet words (which I also use to create poems, but that’s another story) so I could easily read them without needing to be too close. 

Next, I printed the entire poem and cut it into words and word-groups. I chose to preserve some phrases while separating others, based on their meaning in the original poem and how much or little I wanted to preserve that idea vs. allow the idea to evolve in my creative play.

Once everything was cut into single words or into word-groups, I set to work arranging and re-arranging, working first in small sections toward the direction I knew I wanted in the poem—Mr. Mortensen. I chose to work on photos from the Upper Peninsula, as that’s where I had attended high school, so the visual inspiration was in the same vicinity as the poem’s meaning and subject.

I kept playing, trying to include phrases then taking them out. Eventually, I arrived at the point where I thought I wanted a couple of words that hadn’t existed in the previous version of the poem, so I wrote them in bright pink and added them to the mix:

There were parts that no longer fit the larger poem and, for fun, I experimented with creating smaller poems of them.

Finally, after photographing the results, I typed the new version of the poem, adding and refining punctuation. Further revision resulted in eliminating the two lines following “And for what, Mort?” as unnecessary. 

Here’s the final result of this revision.  

Mr. Mortensen 

as best he can he works 

at the desk, the beaten

visibly slumped rayon trousers

his olive green, graying 

socks hitched up

him, imparting 

prepositional phrases, predicates

as the dealer of subjects, 

his face glucose dimmed, 

protracting from his brilliance 

and he works to stay in that 

one-blinking-light town. 

and for what, Mort? 

even as I read, eyes open, 

my thirst would say, take

what you can and run

that light

—the blinking yellow—

would tell me

take caution

intolerance 

finds you, 

the outside world 

showing itself 

The original poem, before this process was: 

Blinking Yellow

In my thirst for poetry I read 

of subjects, predicates, prepositional phrases. 

Even as I grope for their meanings 

I remember the long ago classroom—

those melamine desks to fold into, 

the asbestos-tiled floors, the beaten

teacher desk Mr. Mortensen sat behind, 

his face to the windows, we students an army

of unrule between him and the outside world. 

His olive-green rayon trousers hitched up

so his graying socks visibly slumped 

more with each class, each mass of unruliness

before him, imparting English to the ones 

who wouldn’t ever move and to the few

who weren’t meant to stay in that 

one-blinking-light town. Take caution, 

that light would say, telling highwaymen

to slow a bit, eyes open for pretty girls walking

in twos or threes during lunch period, or 

take what you can—it’s all for sale, as the dealer sign says. 

And Mort, at the desk, one massive leg beneath 

The middle drawer, the other showing itself

It could still do math—a forty-five degree angle 

Protracting from his torso. His brilliance dimmed

by glucose. Intolerance finds you wherever you are. 

And he works to prepare each student as best he can

For what lies in store. 

Take what you can. And run.  

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To read more of Kristen’s writing and to discover her music, check out her website and her SoundCloud and follow her on Facebook and Twitter at @kbaum12. She is awesome, and I hope you get the opportunity to join her in a workshop as I have gotten to do!