Editing Poetry for Empty Words

How to Revise Writing for Efficiency, Description, and Impact

Sep 28, 2008

You may have heard that revising poetry is harmful, but this isn't true. Knowing how to edit poetry will result in inspiring and high-impact poetry.

Whether you just began writing poetry to express your emotions or you’re an ambitious and experienced poet, learning how to effectively edit your own poetry will improve your previously written and future poems. The goal is to take a poem that took lots of hard work and rewriting sound as though the ideas and feelings flowed straight from your mind to the page.

Begin by choosing a poem you like that doesn’t flow just right or have enough impact. Use the following steps to remove the kinds of words mentioned below, as long as they don’t change the overall meaning or effectiveness of the wording. Remember these are not rules, just suggestions. There are always exceptions.

Through the following tips, watch how removing a few words increases the overall impact in the short poem “He was a World.” Try removing the words from your chosen poem too.

He was a World

World-class listener,

Great mind, infinite curiosity.

A man who wrote stories and wore his pencils down to the nub,

So he always found a way to connect.

---

Then, he fell.

Monument to thrift

Scraps, brightly lit, handmade.

But he made his mark.

Use Adjectives and Adverbs Sparingly

Adjectives and adverbs often indicate weak verb and noun choice. She talked quietly could be written more effectively as She whispered. Adverbs modify verbs and often end in –ly, and adjectives modify nouns. Notice how replacing the phrase “brightly lit” with “illuminated” improves the poem’s impact and flow.

Remove Words that Explain a Cause and Effect

The following words are generally used to tell why something happened but can usually be inferred by the reader through the poem’s order in most cases.

Because
Since
Thus
So (as a result of)
Causing
Therefore
And other similar cause-oriented words

Try removing the word "so" from “He was a World” and notice how its removal won’t affect the overall meaning.

Remove Temporal Words

Try removing the following words that tell when in time something happened. Usually, the reader can infer the order from the sequence of the poem.

While
Meanwhile
As (at the same time)
Then
During (at the same time)
When
Before
Even as
After
And other similar time-oriented words

The word "then" can also be removed from “He was a World” without reducing the overall impact of the poem. Here’s the poem after revising for empty words. Its overall flow and impact are improved with the changes.

He was a World (By Megan Wyatt)

World-class listener,

Great mind, and infinite curiosity.

A man who wrote stories and wore his pencils down to the nub,

He always found a way to connect.

---

He fell.

Monument to thrift

Scraps, illuminated, handmade.

Made his mark.

Remember to always check for empty words once you’ve completed a poem. Keep in mind that these are not strict rules but suggestions that can improve the overall quality of your poetry.

Sometimes these words are necessary to a poem, so always use your own judgment, and follow your intuition if you’re unsure whether a word is helpful or harmful. Always stop editing if the quality of the poetry is no longer improving. There is such a thing as over-editing.