Re-entering a poem

Okay, so I found a way to re-enter a poem in which it feels new to me again. This feeling of newness is important for my revision process. I gain distance from the poem & can objectively (more or less) see what's working in a piece and what's dead weight. I'm so excited to find this way back in!

This is what I do: I take the printed copy of a poem and manually (yes, this means taking a pen to paper) re-write the poem. I find that as I'm writing each word, each line - better, clearer alternatives present themselves. By the end, the revisions are in the handwritten version of the poem. And they feel strong. On paper, I find that I have more room to play around with word choices, syntax, line breaks, even -in one case- the order of the poem's lines. This one poem I re-wrote backwards, just to see. And you know what? This newer version feels fantastic; it's got more energy. I think I've gotten rid of the muteness in that particular poem.

Of course, this success doesn't happen with every poem. But literally rewriting the poem on a yellow legal pad does open up more possibilties than I was seeing on the computer screen.

I guess I'm one of those 'old-fashioned' writers who need the physicality of ink and paper. :-)

And I think I'm getting closer to completing this manuscript.