How to Continue—On Revision & Patience in Poem-Making

For more articles, videos, books, and resources about faith and art, visit RabbitRoom.com.

by Anna A. Friedrich

If you are a poet who has a sense that your poems “just come to you” almost like “a download,” or your poems regularly arrive “fully-formed,” either you are a genius of exceptional rarity, or you are not yet a good poet. 

You might be writing out journal entries in poetic verse, which is a lovely practice! Or you might be free-associating, stream-of-consciousness-writing as part of therapy— also a worthy endeavor. But if you really want to grow in the art of poetry, know this: after that first spark, most good poetry requires long revision.

Poem-making is attentive word craft. Perhaps that’s obvious enough, but it is also the careful craft of tending to the white space, or blank space—making room for large areas of the page to remain empty.