We have our finalists: the four poems for my submission. I’m determined to stick with those four, the product of much thought and second-guessing. Now, for the first time, I get to have the experience of doing a final revision of poems that have been around for a little while.
Revising this way is different from revising and polishing a new work. Experienced writers advise giving a work space and time before coming back to it with fresher eyes, and I have tried to do this sometimes. Preparing poems for submission, however, is causing me to do it with a new intensity.
I made my choice of the four about two weeks ago, and I’m aware of them marinating in my brain. It’s kind of like when a poem is simmering in its preliminary stages, but different. They hang around, whispering to me when I’m bored. Bits of them recur, telling me that they want to be altered in some small way. I want them to be their best, yet I want to be careful not to strip them of their energy.
It’s wonderful, and strange, and it feels so, so narcissistic at times.
Lori Lynne Armstrong 