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Thomas Rist's avatar

Hi Tamsin, the first one is my favourite. I think the opening repetitive structure works really well. Yes, I think the middle section goes a bit astray, but it largely gets on track again at the end. I’d be inclined to think of them as two entirely separate poems. So there’s no reason the second one couldn’t be worked on too. I seem to recall there was a classical poet (Horace?) who put every poem he wrote in his desk for six years after writing it. Only then did he look at it again to decide what was worth keeping/ what needed revision - pretty extreme, for sure, but it shows what can be done. Btw. I think writing political poetry is especially difficult, because it tends to become partisan and so miss the nuance of life (and poetry). We have a general election coming up in the UK in about a month and closer to the time I’m intending to put out a “political” (but not party political) poem - you can tell me then if you think (on these terms or any other) I’ve succeeded or failed!! 🙂

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

In my opinion, these are two completely different poems (just linked by the original word/title). I have a hard time talking about American politics because the fact that D.T. was our country's president and may be again makes me feel like crying and screaming into a pillow at the same time. But I love poems that address the very real awfulness that is our current system. It's here, it's frightening, and we need to talk about it and point out the madness.

The second poem resonates for me because I get caught in my brain and have a hard time starting certain things. It felt like it had a broader meaning than revision, which I like.

I've been thinking about revision a lot and wondering if the previous version (in my case only) was simply the best I could do at the time. Later, maybe because of time and also circumstances changing, a different version (a better version?) can come out.

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