Editing contest: the results

Did our volunteer need a gentle breeze – or a sea change?

Well, it looks like you approved of my impromptu editing contest – the inbox has been absolutely crammed with entries over the weekend, and you can find several examples below, including the three prize winners. For those of you not featured, don’t worry, your efforts were not in vain – I forwarded every attempt to the poet, who was absolutely ecstatic to have so much feedback. So, it’s a traditional “huge” thank you from us both to everyone who took part. (You can read the poet’s thoughts on the experience at the very end of this post.)

Coincidentally, my son’s school have declared this to be “Poetry Week”, and brought in a children’s poet to work with the entire school towards two performances. (The poet is one of ours of course; when only the best will do!) Whilst a teacher was telling me about all this (“We haven’t done poetry for a while,” they admitted), I realised that no one at the school knew about my job – and also, that I had no idea how to succinctly express my long professional / emotional history with the poetic arts.

“You know,” I said, then paused, waiting for the right words to come. “I’m quite into poetry myself.”

The teacher smiled, and replied: “Good for you!” I like to think they’d say the same to everyone who took part in this contest.

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Here’s the original poem again, for reference:

Inspiration Day

I can’t put my finger on it. The colour.
It’s a grey area. 
Insipid, nondescript, under normal circumstances that is… 
In these conditions, magnificent!

Catching a light beam
Glowing like an ancient artefact from Indi Jones Locker.
Fleeting as its treasure is buried 
With a sweep of water and a mercurial cloud.

With the translucent fluidity of molten glass
Up up up, rising, long before 
its spectacular fall
as its crest crumbles in on itself.

Mesmerising. The rhythm continues 
over and over
Woosh crash, woosh crash.
Rough sand tumbling, 
raking smooth its hidden gems.

Stability sucked from under one’s feet,
only to return with the next tide.

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After a brief initial consideration, my edits would have been to:

• Gently revise the rhythm to improve the flow; it’s quite uneven at present.

• Trim out some of the overly rich, heavy-handed words. One or two “mercurial” or “fluidity”s are okay, but they must be used in moderation.

• Correct the start-of-line capitalisation, and grammar – I am more pedantic than most poetry editors on that front. Also, Indiana Jones’s name is always shortened to “Indy”, with a “y”, when written down. (No one else caught that; but that’s why I’m in charge, of course!)

Your edits, on the other hand, ranged from changing two or three words to writing an entirely new poem based on this one. Ralph Dartford (a familiar name round these parts) presented this drastically “pared back” version:

No finger on it. 
The colour, the grey area. 
Insipid in other circumstances.
Here, the light glows as if a search.

A treasure sunk — swept to water. 
The tide of molten glass rising  
to the ever fall, its peaked collapse. 
Betrothed to a rule of maths. 

Jayant Kashyap similarly ventured off down his own path, as follows:

On every other day an ambiguity, one couldn’t
put a finger
but today, what do you call it — it’s a luminous idea
luminous from lumineux from lumen meaning
‘light’ meaning literally an ‘opening’
for light to pass, and for everything else
like from Jones’s locker — like a heart beating in the distance
a mirror reflecting all the light from inside it
and then the mirror falling on the ground
flows like water does
the light everywhere
floating — mesmerising — like music in the air like whale song
like water like sand in a desert rising and falling
like crests and troughs — like a flight of stairs
sometimes crumbling, like in an old life

As another alternative, Suzie Millar presented this piece, titled ‘Memory of Light’:

I am mesmerised by its rise and fall.
Drawn in by the hypnotic rhythm
of crest and crumble
crest and crumble.

But its colour is uninspiring.
An insipid, nondescript grey
stretching as far as the eye can see.

Yet this is a chameleon world.
When a stream of sunlight
breaches the gloom
the swishing surf is transformed.

And I too am illuminated
– eyes brighten, feet float
and my thoughts turn to gold.

When a sweep of water
and a mercurial cloud
install the dullness again
I remain upbeat.

The memory of light
lives on.

With these examples, my fascination was what parts they kept, rather than what was changed or removed. I have included them here to show the kind of variety we had in the responses, and while I could definitely imagine them winning a competition, they are perhaps too drastic to win one purely about editing. (In different circumstances, the poets could almost put “after [original poet’s name]” as an epigraph and seek further publication.)

Chris Sewart offered a precise, straightforward edit, taking care of my bullet points:

I can’t put my finger on it. The colour.
It’s a grey area. Insipid, commonplace,
under normal circumstances that is…
In these conditions, magnificent!

Catching a light beam
glowing like a primeval artefact
from Indi Jones’ locker. Fleeting,
as its treasure is buried by
a sweep of water and a mercurial cloud.

With the fluid translucence of molten glass,
up up up, rising, long before
its spectacular fall
as its crest crumbles in on itself.

Mesmerising. The rhythm continues
over and over – woosh crash,
woosh crash.  Rough sand tumbling,
raking smooth its veiled gems.

Stability sucked from under one’s feet,
only to return with the next tide.

He also provided some helpful commentary:

I've uncapitalised many of the lines – my preference but I also feel it helps the reader to better identify the right pauses and starts in a poem.

Some words have been replaced with ones that might have more 'punch' or feel more in rhythm with the poem: commonplace/insipid ... primeval/ancient ... veiled/hidden ... fluid translucence/translucence fluidity.

I've replaced with with by in line 4 of the second stanza, as when I read the poem it felt it clashed with the with that starts stanza 3. Line breaks are something I'm evolving in my own poetry (or trying to!) and I think my changes here aid the poem's flow. 

I can’t include too many of the subtler efforts here (it would be too much even for the most devoted reader!), but I thought Adrienne Silcock and Eve Jackson presented wonderful versions by subtracting – Eve said she was focused on “tautology” (i.e. not saying the same thing twice), while Adrienne sought the “nub” of the poem, “taking over” whilst not wanting to “rob the poet of their voice”.

Speaking of the original, anonymous poet, she marked Tim Ellis and Steve Rudd’s versions among her personal favourites – “they felt the most like my poem, just improved”, was her reflection. Tim did a superb job focusing purely on the punctuation and line breaks, leaving the words in peace, while Steve employed the mantra “content dictates form”, turning the original lines into “a succession of ebbs and flows, with short sentences building up to a longer sentence”.

Somewhat awkwardly, another of the poet’s favourite edits was by my own mother, the infamous Anne McGarry – perhaps I should have put one of those disclaimers about “family members not being eligible” (although her brother, my uncle, also contributed a strong effort). Anne thought that instead of “put a finger on it” (a totally unsuitable cliche that somehow survived in every other version) the poet should say “I cannot fathom the colour” – nice! – and instead of “crumbling” the wave should “shatter”. This particular entrant still has several shelves of old VP books in what was my teenage bedroom, so I have instructed her to head in and select one for her prize. (That’s Mother’s Day taken care of too – what a lucky lady!)

Myself and the poet ultimately agreed on three “winners” of the contest, who I will now present in reverse order, and who will soon be the proud owners of one, two and three “surprise” Valley Press poetry collections respectively – let me know your preferred postal addresses and we’ll get those sent out.

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Third Prize – Liz Cashdan

Can’t quite put my finger on it. The colour.
It’s a grey area
under normal circumstances
but today it’s something else,

catching a light beam
glowing like an artifact from Indiana Jones’ Locker.
Fleeting, as its treasure is buried
in a sweep of water and a mercurial cloud.

With the translucent fluidity of molten glass
up, up, up, rising, long before
its fall
as its crest crumbles in on itself.

The rhythm continues over and over,
roaring crash after roaring crash,
rough sand tumbling,
raking smooth its hidden gems.

Stability pulled from under my feet,
only to return with the next tide.

This is possibly the most subtle edit from the whole stack, with Liz taking this poem from first draft to publication-worthy in the fewest possible steps. Yet, that is a real art in itself, a skill worthy of the utmost respect – and importantly, this was the version the poet was most excited about. (Last I heard, she was about to write to Liz and ask if she could use this version in future.) Liz’s notes were:

Mostly I tried to get rid of abstract words, nouns and adjectives, and words which repeat what’s already been said. I’ve also got rid of capitals at the beginning of lines except after a full stop. Since there is a “my” in the first line, I’ve changed “one’s” in the last line to “my” as well.

In general, the images are strong and I’ve kept them, only getting rid of “woosh” which sounds a bit childish. I’ve also removed “Day” from the title, as you can get the indrawn breath image from “inspiration”, as well as the suggestion of new ideas so that the carpet of stability being pulled from under the narrator’s feet becomes a metaphor for these new ideas, and the word “day” becomes irrelevant.

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Second Prize – Robbie Burton

I can’t put my finger on it. 
The colour.
It’s a grey area, insipid 
under normal circumstances –
in these conditions, magnificent!

Up          up           up 
with the fluidity of molten glass 
long before 
its spectacular fall,
the crest crumbling in on itself.

Over and over
whoosh   crash  
rough sand raking hidden gems, 
sucking stability from under my feet
whoosh   crash   whoosh   crash  

the next tide bringing it back. 

Robbie managed to find the sweet spot between honouring the original poem and its intentions, whilst also giving it a complete overhaul. I particularly liked his approach to the “sound effects”, and the lonely final line. (The poet loves this one too, which is impressive considering how much was removed.) Robbie offered these comments:

It’s a great first draft, with the action of waves and sea being a powerful metaphor for inspiration. I felt the second stanza wasn’t as strong as the rest, which focus on one clear image. When I tried omitting it the poem seemed to gain more clarity.
 
At the end of the poem I thought about cutting “only to return with the next tide” which didn’t have the same punch as “stability sucked from under one’s feet” which would make a great final line. However, by doing this the poet’s meaning would be lost. So I experimented with repetition and made the last line stand-alone.
 
The “I” in the first line didn’t appear again, so I brought it back in by changing “one’s feet” to “my feet” in the penultimate stanza. 

I tightened up the poem overall while trying to retain its vividness and sounds, and maintaining the very strong metaphor.

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First Prize – Adam Strickson

I can’t put my finger on it. The colour.
It’s a grey area –
insipid, nondescript –
in these conditions, magnificent.

Catching a light beam,
it glows like an artifact
from Indi Jones Locker.

Up up up, its crest rises
with the fluidity of molten glass
before a spectacular fall.

The rhythm continues 
over and over –
woosh crash, woosh crash –
rough sand tumbles
and rakes out hidden gems.

Stability sucked from under me,
to return with the next tide.

Adam’s mastery of the rhythm (which really does “continue” here) wins him the grand honours in our first editing competition. The poet feels warmly towards this version, but for me, Adam has absolutely perfected the poem, to an exact science – this is not the next draft, this is the last draft. I want to get out my stamp of the Valley Press logo and bang it right on the page.

(I appreciate views may differ – you’ve seen plenty of versions now, and are in a position to make up your own mind. Poetry is subjective, after all. And actually, he still misspelt “Indy”, which goes to show no one is absolutely perfect.)

Adam had quite a lot to say about his edit, all very insightful:

The first draft offered seems to tell too much rather than show, though this is an old cliché that sometimes needs turning on its head. In contemporary UK English poetry ‘telling’ is for me sometimes overly discouraged, and in these difficult and unstable times we sometimes need to tell, succinctly and without a preacher-tone; but not in this kind of lyrical poem.

An example is the use of the word ‘mesmerising’ at the beginning of the fourth stanza, which I have cut because that’s already there in the rhythm and the words following. And of course the glowing artifact is fleeting and we know the treasure will be buried, so do we need to say that or can we leave the completion of that image to the reader? – really I’m not sure here but have gone for cutting the second half of stanza 2.

For me, the rhythm of this draft is too disjointed and irregular for the action it is describing so I’ve simplified it and made it easier to look at on the page (and easier to feel in the mouth and hear). One strong image is always better than two in this kind of short poem that intensifies a moment and it’s tempting to over elaborate early on in the poem before the reader has absorbed the central image clearly, so hence the editing of the second stanza.

Again a cliché but I found an over use of participles was stopping the movement of the poem a little, making it drag, though this could be intentional and I could fairly easily be persuaded to reinstate a participle. I’ve deliberately not put new words in, honouring the vocabulary of the writer, but I’ve taken quite a few out like ‘mercurial’ which for me is an overly ‘poetic’ and unsurprising adjective, especially when added to ‘fleeting’.

I did really enjoy working on editing the poem and felt closer to the writer’s voice and intentions because of this exercise, even if they choose to leave the poem exactly as in their draft. This suggests that editing is a very useful exercise in ‘close reading’.

I’ve actually edited those notes down a bit too – hey, maybe that could be the next competition! (Just joking, don’t worry.)

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Congratulations to all the winners! I’ll give the last word to the poet herself, who has also provided the photograph that inspired the poem:

I personally wanted to thank everyone who had a bash at editing my poem. It’s been a fascinating experience, and I have taken all your comments and changes on board. Your editing, to my mind, was excellent, and has definitely taken an average poem and raised its bar. 

I have a lot to learn, but the editing and feedback you gave was incredibly educational and I am sure it will help me improve in the future. It was also uplifting, as I felt that although the poem may have been a little weak, it had the bare bones, or ingredients needed, and was not a lost cause.

There were versions I liked and could appreciate, even though there was little sign of the original poem in them. Others were subtle in their changes, but to my delight, still sounded as if I had written them. The small changes had big results, making the poem flow, improving its rhythm, and sounding far more professional. (Though Jamie may have other ideas!?)

So, thank you once again for engaging in this challenge, and ‘huge’ thanks to Jamie for his fabulous idea and for giving me this learning opportunity.

Time to “wave” goodbye – this has been quite a weekend! Watch this space for another competition soon.