in Visible Breath - 14 and a half years to publication
A poem I wrote at Marion Correctional institution on 8 May 1996 was just published in the UK. It appears in Indigo Dreams' Winter 2010 anthology Visible Breath, available here: http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/#/visible-breath/4539214329. I wrote this poem back before I was the relentless reviser I now tend to be. Then, I'd often write one and abandon it, largely because I believed the poem was writing itself through me (the hubris!) and that I shouldn't intrude on it with any second guessing. Nowadays, however, I look at most of my old "inspired" poems and think they need chiseled and buffed before they can really show off any gemliness they might possess. In a burst of apparent insanity (or genius, though I'm inclined to believe the former), I submitted this poem, entitled "Past Present Future Tense," to Indigo Dreams in its raw 1996 form, resisting a strong urge to purge it of its acrostic form and, at the very least, drastically revise its line breaks. This was, I suppose, a nod to my old way of letting the poem be without my interference — though still I wonder whether I should have shaken my head instead and chiseled away.
If you revise a poem considerably is it the same poem or considered a new one? and can you submit the new version somewhere else?
Just wondering...
It would be an interesting way to see if both versions are valid writes.
But maybe that is just ignorance on my part as an immature writer.
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I've submitted (and had published) different versions of the same poem. There are even two versions of the same poem in my first chapbook, Bloggerel. Whether I submit a new version of a previously published poem depends on where it was published, where I'm submitting it (and their rules) and how drastic a revision it is. If I've only changed a word or two, it's hard to sell it as a "new" poem to a publication that desires only work that has never before been published.
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There's something to letting your earlier self speak in his own words.
For what it's worth, a poem I wrote in 1982 just came out in Word Salad Poetry.
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It did feel more honest (albeit less artistic) to leave it as is. Wow, 1982!?!?! That's pretty much when I began writing poetry, though I can't imagine anyone wanting to publish my "work" from back then. Congratulations, Geoff!
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congrats again. you're establishing quite a poetry presence online and off.
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Thanks, Smith!
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