Revision as Cooking, Revision as Childrearing, Revision as Midwifing, Revision as a Poet’s Superpower
A draft of a poem isn’t a broken thing that needs to be fixed. It’s not a clear, rational argument that needs a little cleaning up, a little editing. It’s a missive from another world that has thus far been only partially-translated. Or, as writes Philip Metres in “The Art of Losing (and other Visions of Revision),” “Your work is not full of mistakes, and it’s not broken. It’s just not itself yet” (62). Bingo. That bag of flour and that egg? They’re not a bad cake. They haven’t failed you on your birthday. They’re just not a cake yet. A draft is nothing but the ingredients for a poem, lined up and waiting for the skilled chef to go to work. But there’s no definitive recipe, either, because each poem, if it’s good, is a new thing that has never existed yet. It’s a bird, not a birdhouse, as Dean Young tells us in The Art of Recklessness. A poem is something wild and mysterious that is trying to be born, and your arsenal of revision skills may make the difference, for the poem, between living and dying. Please note – This is a revision workshop, so please bring a draft of a poem.
This seminar is part of the Accents Originals Series held in partnership with Accents Publishing.
Please note that registration is exclusively through Accents Publishing; the registration link will take you to their page. No discounts specific to the Carnegie Center apply to this special series of seminars.
Tom C. Hunley is the author of eight full-length poetry collections, eight chapbooks, two textbooks, and two produced films. He and his wife of twenty-nine years have four amazing kids. Right or wrong, he believes he has impeccable taste when it comes to literature, film, music, and the one woman who has his whole heart. He seriously lacks inner resources, and he’s almost certain that his liver is diseased. He despises generative AI, groupthink, the tortured language of propaganda, big government, and bloated bureaucracies, especially in universities. He has published poems in journals with names beginning with every letter of the alphabet, from Atlanta Review to Zone 3. He is currently working on a novel and a memoir-in-flash.
