For You, Fellow Paddler, And For Me

This from Kenneth Koch, who continues, in "The Art of Poetry"

To look at a poem again of course causes anxiety
In many cases, but that pain a writer must learn to endure,
For without it he will be like a chicken that never knows what
it is doing
And goes feathering and fluttering through life. When one
finds the poem
Inadequate, then one must revise, and this can be very hard
going
Indeed. For the original "inspiration" is not there. Some
poets never master the
Art of doing this, and remain "minor" or almost nothing at
all.
Such have my sympathy but not my praise. My sympathy
because
Such work is difficult, and most persons accomplish nothing
whatsoever
In the course of their lives; ...

Let your language be delectable always, and fresh and true.

-Kenneth Koch

I'm thinking about revision, about talking about it in front of people, calling on Koch and Denise Levertov and Stephen Dunn and Jane Hirschfield, who I believe will help me to frame what I want to say, and give me some punchy quotations. I'm also reading poems and marking them with yellow post-it notes. Whether or not I will use any of the poems or many of the quotes I don't yet know. I'm circling around the idea of revision, bumping into thoughts and projects as I go, knowing that as I think and don't think and read and write some sort of sensible sounding or helpful theme will arrive and I will follow it around until I have something coherent to say, rather like a dog turning around and around to flatten its bed before lying down.

Kenneth Koch delights me - his high toned mock formality covering a deep seriousness.