Revision Hack

Recasting Your Work

Hi, Friend.

As I talked about in the craft tip this week, we each have our own tics and preferences in our writing: default line and stanza lengths, types of sentences, rhetorical moves. On one hand, these aspects of craft make our work recognizably ours; they’re how we can instantly distinguish a Glück poem from a Berssenbrugge poem from a Zapruder poem. On the other hand, it’s easy to get a little too comfortable in our comfort zones.

This revision strategy is one that helps me step back, question my choices, and see the poem anew. (To revise, after all, means “to look at again,” to re-envision.)