Revising

Over the past few weeks I have been on a journey to complete a self-portrait anthology through poetry. Throughout this time, I have tackled some of my poetry fears that I had mentioned before. I realized that within school I developed a negative association with poetry because I had no real tool set to help me express myself or when I did it was so structured that I felt I couldn't be expressive. I will be sharing a method that I personally used and how I revised throughout this poem.

I used the 6 room Image Poem from Georgia Heard's book Awakening the Heart

I wrote a poem about a night in my life that was so meaningful with a person that was about to leave my college for a very long time. We had went to this beautiful place right at sunset and i remember thinking I will never forget that night.

My six room chart:

First draft:

I truly hated this first draft. I didn't like how it flowed and I realized what I really wanted to focus on was comparing the scenery to how I was feeling. It took me a few days of thinking before I made the second draft. I even considered giving up the poem but that moment meant a lot to me and I wanted to give it another chance.

Second draft:

HUGE improvement for what I wanted this poem to sound like. I loved where this was going but I needed one more draft to clean up what I had written. This time around I realized I liked how it leaves the reader open ended.

Third draft:

FINAL DRAFT!!

This lead to the final draft which I was really proud of.

I did not think this poem would turn out the way it did but I am very pleased with it. Although I did not use everything in my original chart, the strategy made me think about that night it ways that I had never though of before. I hope this helps someone with their revising! Let it flow the way you feel and remember its okay if the final product turns out differently than you originally thought. I want to always teach my students to let their writings be authentic.