Dedications and Acknowledgments: The Art of Giving Thanks

In my experience as a book editor, the biggest mystery to emerging and sometimes even established poets is how to effectively order a poetry manuscript. As a poet working on revising and re-revising my graduate thesis toward book publication, I didn’t have much idea either. Here’s why: Ordering a manuscript requires a different kind of thinking than line editing or revising your poems—a kind of thinking I hadn’t been taught. A poet I work with calls it “the helicopter view,” which I love. I think of ordering as a kind of three-dimensional thinking, as opposed to the two-dimensional thinking (like using tweezers under a microscope) necessary for line editing poems. Ordering requires seeing each poem from a distance, so that all its sides are visible; it also requires seeing the manuscript as a whole, so that you can decide how each poem and its parts might connect with others in a series.

It wasn’t until the beginning of my tenure as executive director of Alice James Books, in 2000, that I really learned how to order poetry manuscripts. I challenged myself to suggest an ordering strategy particular to the poetic style, themes, subjects, obsessions, strengths, and weaknesses of each book I edited. Excited as I was to be entrusted with the task, I was profoundly anxious. Since I hadn’t yet published my first book, all the poets I edited had accomplished something that was still a goal of mine. At the very least they had had their first book accepted, and many had published multiple books. But performance anxiety was a good teaching tool; I was determined to give my best to those poets, and to make sure my best got better. The method I developed is the one I still use, ninety-plus edited books later.

The first thing I do when I edit a manuscript is to consider the inclusion and exclusion of poems, which is a critical part of ordering. It’s also perhaps the most difficult editing we perform, because it can mean letting go of emotional attachments. As poets we keep poems in our manuscripts for all kinds of reasons, but there are two inseparable criteria that should govern: The poem is “book strong” and fits the major or minor themes and subjects, helping to create a cohesive whole. We keep poems that don’t fit those criteria for several reasons. Sometimes we’re attached to a poem because it represents an important emotional moment, phase, or event. Other times we’re attached because it’s the title poem and “must” stay, even if the wise voice we so often ignore whispers that it’s not up to snuff. And still other times we’re attached to a poem because we think it’s critical to the collection’s narrative, themes, or chronology; it was published in a magazine; it’s our mother’s favorite; and so on.

If the poem doesn’t fit the criteria, save it for a future manuscript, for rereading, for framing as a broadside and hanging on the living room wall—but don’t leave it in the manuscript. Strength, not length, makes a good book.

Unless the manuscript is overlong, I ask authors for extra poems to consider with the manuscript, and I recommend that poets who are acting as their own editors do the same. Try considering strong poems that may be newer and may not feel as if they belong in the manuscript. I read the manuscript and extra poems, giving each poem a grade: check-plus, check, or check-minus. Then I set the check-minuses aside. If there are enough check-pluses to create a book-length manuscript, I set aside the checks, too, after deciding whether they can be edited up to check-pluses, giving special consideration to those that are thematically important or have great potential but are simply in an early, rough stage.

Then I reread the poems, listing each one’s themes and subjects, as well as noting repeated words or images. We all repeat ourselves, but some of us do so more obsessively than others, and that can be a strength or a weakness—or both. Next, I separate the poems into piles based on theme or subject, count the number of pages in each pile and note how many of the strongest poems landed in each, and use that information as one of multiple guides to a successful ordering strategy. I’m not a believer in the one perfect way to order a given poetry manuscript. I believe that the many ways to order a manuscript are limited only by imagination, so feel free to invent strategies beyond those I suggest. It’s important to try different strategies and to make a decision based on both intellect and intuition. Go with the order that feels right.

Working with Adrian Matejka to edit his first book, The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003), produced an ordering that felt right to me. As I recall, the manuscript arrived with a roughly narrative or chronological ordering. The collection contains multiple subjects and themes, but in reading the manuscript I noticed a common thread: identity. The final ordering highlights it, delineating how music/musicians, history, art, pop culture, ethnic background, family, and experience formed the speaker’s identity. Poems on those subjects are interwoven throughout and ordered to create a sense of growth or evolution (not chronology—the poems jump forward and flash back in time, reflecting how the mind experiences identity), resulting in a thematically cohesive collection.

Ordering strategies I’ve used include creating a narrative line or arc (regardless of whether the poetry is narrative) and grouping or interweaving themes to create a sense of evolution or growth, proceeding toward a conclusion—not resolution. Another strategy is a lyric ordering, in which each poem is linked to the previous one, repeating a word, image, subject, or theme. This sometimes provides a continuation, sometimes a contrast or argument. Other times I follow one or several emotionally charged poems with one that provides comic or other relief; sometimes I work to vary (or interweave) the poetic styles, individual poem length, pace, tone, or emotion. Some orders build toward a narrative, emotional, or evolutionary climax or conclusion (a “Western ending”) and some end deliberately unresolved or ambiguous (an “Eastern ending”). Different poetic styles can benefit from different ordering considerations. A manuscript composed of poems that function in a deliberately nonnarrative fashion might best be ordered according to a strategy of collage, surprise, or juxtaposition—or by creating a faux narrative arc.

Other ordering considerations include whether to heighten or downplay the poet’s repetition of particular imagery, words, or subjects. If there are too many repetitions of a word or image, I generally recommend making some substitutions, and placing those poems at strategic intervals in the manuscript. This can create a subtle sense of obsession rather than a numbing one. I also alternate strong and less strong poems, and try to avoid having too many poems in a row on the same subject or theme, except where they indicate growth, contrast, or argument. I may order to heighten the importance and relevance of the manuscript’s title or leitmotif, or to create a greater sense of thematic unity. Generally my suggested order juggles most of these concerns at once, which is where that clear three-dimensional or helicopter view is most critical.

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To achieve an order that maximizes strengths and minimizes weaknesses, it’s crucial to gain the editorial distance necessary to self- evaluate, to think like an editor. An exercise for achieving this is listing a minimum of two strengths and weaknesses per poem, as if preparing criticism for poetry workshop fellows. Some things to assess are syntax, diction, and voice; either too much or not enough description; the balance of abstract to concrete imagery or symbolism; the flow or rhythm; the presence or lack of tension or risk (narrative, dramatic, linguistic, formal, emotional); the capacity to surprise; line breaks; word choice (the best, most accurate, evocative choice for context); point of view; and the use (or misuse) of dialogue. Noting as many strengths and weaknesses as possible allows for the most objective evaluation of which poems are strongest and why.

I also consider whether a manuscript needs sections and whether the sections will benefit from titles. The current convention tends largely toward creating untitled sections, and that works for many, but isn’t right for all. Some progressions are best not interrupted, and some collections don’t require the extra breathing space. Valerie Martínez’s Each and Her (University of Arizona Press, 2010) is a perfect example of both. The poems, ordered as a numbered series without sections, are exceptionally spare and employ metaphor, collage, lists, found poems, fragments, and juxtaposition, all revolving around an emotionally charged subject—the murdered women of Juárez—to create a fractured, incomplete narrative and a tense, riveting progression.

For manuscripts that benefit from sections, I begin and end each one with strong poems that create links between sections. It’s important to begin and end the manuscript with two of the strongest poems, but I also recommend giving consideration to which subjects, themes, or poetic styles best introduce the poet’s work and the speaker’s character within the context of the manuscript, and what the poet considers to be the crucial “takeaway” for the reader. Which lines does the poet want to ring in the reader’s ears on closing the book—which are most worthy and memorable?

I don’t often recommend titling  sections, because it often feels too  “telling,” too directive, and too limiting of potential interpretations, especially for poetry that employs accessible styles. Titling sections for such manuscripts works best when it heightens ambiguities or adds to potential interpretations, rather than explaining. Titling sections for more elliptical poetry styles can be a boon for the reader, offering an assist without spoiling the mystery.

Other ordering conventions include the use of prologue (“proem”) or epilogue poems, epigraphs, and notes, all of which can add to or detract from a manuscript’s strengths. As a reader, my expectation for a prologue is that it be one of the strongest and most representative poems in the collection, yet poets often choose a weak one, placing it in the most visible spot in the manuscript. Title poems create a similarly oft-disappointed expectation. In such cases I recommend that the poet omit or line edit and re-title the poem, but keep the original title as the book title. Epilogue poems rarely seem necessary to me, but can be a fine or fun choice where they function as true epilogues, offering a bit of the after-story, or in cases where their use is humorous. Even then there’s a risk of the epilogue’s feeling overly intentional, coy, clever—or just plain unnecessary.

Epigraphs have been such a popular convention for so long that many poets seem to feel they’re required for a book to be taken seriously. As both rebel and reformer, I take issue with real or imagined strictures, but some poets and readers simply love epigraphs. Unless I’m editing a manuscript, I tend not to attach much importance to them. For me, they work best where they highlight, comment on, or expand on a theme, subject, or obsession in the manuscript, but if the poet has done good work, an epigraph shouldn’t be necessary (poem epigraphs that are noticeably better written or more interesting than the poem should be omitted). For me, they’re candied violets on the frosting on the cake, and I happen to like cake best. I wouldn’t, however, deny others their candy or frosting.

The use of endnotes is probably the most contentious consideration (some readers find them necessary, some vehemently oppose them). The tradition is that poetry shouldn’t need notes, that it should be complete in itself and shouldn’t need explaining, but there are many poets and readers who enjoy them, and the types of endnotes employed are multiplying. Notes were once mostly limited to translating foreign words, defining obscure ones, and acknowledging textual appropriations. Now they include dedications to family, friends, or writers; direction to source material or additional sources for further study; and acknowledgment of inspirational sources. As a reader, I prefer few or no notes. As an editor, I’m more flexible, but recommend keeping them as brief as possible. Pages of endnotes can be off-putting, and author Web sites or blogs provide a better venue for fun and interesting but extraneous material and notes.

Once I’ve ordered a manuscript, I let it steep overnight and read it again the next day to see if the ordering still seems good. I recommend this to authors, but on a more elastic timeline: Try going back to read the manuscript at odd moments over a period of days or weeks. Try printing several versions employing different orderings, and then use your intuition to decide which one is best.

April Ossmann is the author of Anxious Music (Four Way Books, 2007), an independent editor, and former executive director of Alice James Books. Her Web site is www.aprilossmann.com.

You’re heading home from that writers conference, exhausted and exhilarated, toting a bag loaded with feedback on your short story from fifteen people you didn’t even know two weeks ago. Or you’re finishing the second workshop of your first year in that MFA program, overwhelmed by the torrent of advice you received on the poem you’ve been revising for six months. Perhaps you’re hunkered over your coffee table in the few minutes you have between your nine-to-five job and this month’s writers group meeting, trying to digest the comments on your memoir from the last time you met. No matter what circumstances have led to the blizzard of input—this often contradictory, sometimes intimidating, and occasionally infuriating criticism—the question remains: How do you begin to make sense of it all?

After years of digesting criticism of my own fiction as well as reading and listening to countless commentaries from my students on their peers’ work, I’ve found there are three basic principles that will help you master the art of evaluating feedback on your writing.

READING YOURSELF
With your poem, short story, essay, or book manuscript back in your hands, the first thing you’ll probably do is scan the feedback as quickly as possible with the secret hope that your critics have deemed the piece perfect. But once you see this is not the case—and before you can productively sort through the comments—you have to perform a balancing act that may be the most difficult step of the evaluation process. You must suspend enough of your ego to become somewhat objective while holding on to enough of it so that you don’t sacrifice your vision.

The easiest way to reach that semiobjective zone is simply to wait. For many of us, our immediate reaction to feedback can be defensiveness—and even anger, hurt, and ultimately defeat. Let those feelings pass before reading the criticism carefully. For me, this usually takes about a day, although when I was younger and less experienced, it took longer. If you can figure out your own schedule around this issue, you can save yourself a lot of the emotional agony and time wasted by wrestling with criticism too early. Let the critique cool. Only when you feel your mind and heart creaking back open should you give the commentary a careful read.

At the same time, remember that humility and openness to the ideas of others isn’t the final endpoint in this process. Some writers—especially beginning writers who receive feedback from authoritative critics—quickly abandon their vision of the piece, and it immediately ceases to be their own. When this happens, the work almost always fails. Achieving the balance between receptivity to others and faith in one’s self takes practice and experience, and as your sense of yourself as a writer solidifies, it becomes easier to strike this equilibrium.

READING THE FEEDBACK
When you’re finally ready to carefully consider the criticism of your work, you must first ask yourself: What parts of this critique contribute to the ultimate goal of fulfilling my vision for this work? What parts indicate that the reader either doesn’t understand my intent, or understands my intent but wants me to move in a different direction?

Before you can answer these questions, of course, you have to have a fairly strong sense of your vision for the work. This is why it is important to avoid exposing your writing to criticism until you have a solid grasp of what you’re trying to achieve. I don’t show anyone what I’m working on until I know I can’t make it any better by myself, and I usually don’t reach this point until I’ve finished seven or eight drafts. You might ask someone to read your piece early in the writing process for her support, but if you do this, make clear to the reader what you need from her at this stage—it usually isn’t criticism. Even the most novice writer must wait until he at least thinks he understands his vision for the piece before he makes it vulnerable to outside criticism. Later, when you feel you have a handle on your work’s intent and are ready to seek criticism, remain open to the possibility that you still may not fully understand the piece and that another reader might actually “get” it before you do.

Once you’re conscious of your intent, you’re ready to evaluate the specific content of the feedback. If more than one reader identifies the same problem, your decision is relatively easy. Take that consistent reaction to heart. Unfortunately, though, you can often find yourself getting conflicting advice about a specific issue—one reader loved it, another hated it or found it confusing. For example, an editor found the way I slowly revealed information in the first hundred pages of my novel a weakness—she felt that if I didn’t more immediately make clear what the novel “was about,” readers wouldn’t continue reading. Three of my other critics, however, actually loved what one called the “hide-and-reveal” nature of the book because of the suspense it built.

When you hear conflicting advice about a single issue, consider the source of the criticism and listen to your gut. Two readers taking notice of the same element of your story in different ways may mean that you’re actually doing something right there—something unusual or unexpected. It may also mean that you’re simply not making yourself clear, and you’re being misread all the way around. Pay special attention to criticism that echoes comments about earlier pieces you’ve received from different readers. I’ve always been called on my vague pronoun references, for example, so if that comes up (again) in feedback, I know it’s something I need to address.

As a rule of thumb, take seriously the fact that a problem has been identified. Take a little less seriously the ideas your reader offers as solutions. Occasionally such solutions do work, but more often than not someone else’s idea for your own piece just isn’t quite right. If you can tweak the suggestion in your own way, however, it may very well do the trick. For these reasons, a vague solution can actually be more helpful than a specific one.

But while open-ended solutions might be useful, be wary of ambiguous identifications of potential problems, like “I just couldn’t get into the essay” or “I couldn’t really sympathize with the main character.” These comments often indicate that the reader isn’t reading or thinking very carefully, or is thinking about the wrong things. You can sometimes salvage this kind of critique by kindly asking for specifics. A close cousin to the vague response is the canned response—those old chestnuts you hear over and over again in workshops, which usually mean that the reader didn’t read closely or that she doesn’t have enough workshop experience to know how to really critique a piece. Whenever I hear “I would like to see more of this character” or “of this scene,” for example, two of the most common canned workshop responses, I bristle. If the reader is explaining exactly how a character needs to be developed or is describing precisely how the scene needs to be expanded, “I’d like to see more of…” is helpful. Usually, however, it’s just downright lazy feedback.

Occasionally, in more advanced workshops, you’ll get something that is the opposite of canned feedback but is no more useful: A reader will make a suggestion that sounds very original and interesting, but, on close inspection, has little to do with your piece, at least as you have written it. (This usually comes from the kind of critic for whom it’s more important to look intelligent to others in the workshop than it is to help you improve your writing.)

Be wary of suggestions that make the work “easier” to read. If your critic is addressing something in your story that is obviously unclear, fine, but such suggestions can also be triggered by a passage in your piece where you made an unexpected move, strayed from conventions, or took a risk. While the critic’s natural instinct might be to “smooth out” these irregularities, you could end up compromising the originality of your art by following such directives. Another more obvious thing to remember is that if a reader has unequivocally misread one part of your piece, you should probably take less seriously his similar remarks elsewhere.

Keep in mind that a reader who commented on an earlier draft may have a hard time giving an objective, reliable read of a revised version. Unfortunately, that first read usually muddies the second one. As a teacher who must comment on my students’ revisions and read commentaries on their peers’ revisions, I’ve noticed this problem time and again. When critics reread, they tend to over-praise changes (especially ones they suggested), grow bored more quickly, and occasionally bemoan the omission of passages or lines they grew attached to in an early draft but that really did need to go.

READING YOUR READERS
As part of evaluating feedback, you also need to evaluate its source. Sizing up an unknown reader in a new workshop or writers group is tricky business, which is why it’s so critical to develop and nurture a network of readers you trust. In your workshops and writing groups, seek out thorough readers who understand your vision and aren’t set on altering it, and then try to work with them outside that structured context. Offer to trade work with them—always reciprocate—and remember that a thoughtful, caring response to their work is likely to elicit a comparable effort.

Although it might take years to evolve, such a network of readers is invaluable, not just for the purpose of getting criticism of your work, but also as a support system as you suffer the inevitable trials and tribulations of being a writer. Don’t despair if you don’t have the opportunity to know a variety of people in this way. Even one or two smart, dependable, generous people can provide you with almost everything you need.

When you are confronted with a new reader, weigh a number of factors—including the amount of workshop experience the person has had, the quality and quantity of literature she has read, and what she likes to read and why—to determine how relevant her comments will be to your work. A particular reader might be an excellent critic of a certain type of writing but not a good critic of yours. At the same time, don’t discount the perspective of a smart reader who doesn’t share your aesthetic. This kind of critic can be extremely valuable in unexpected ways. For example, my short stories are very language-driven, but precisely because I understand style a lot better than I understand plot, I can learn a lot from good readers who grasp plot better than the intricacies of language.

Pay attention to how the workshop participant responds to the work of others in the class, especially work that shares similarities with yours. Take with a grain of salt not only destructive critics, but also those who praise enthusiastically everything they lay eyes on. And do consider any personal biases a reader might have for or against a particular piece. Such prejudices might concern you as a writer (and have nothing to do with your work), the critic’s insecurities about her own work, or the subject matter of the poem, story, or essay being critiqued. I’ve had readers who identified so closely with a protagonist that they couldn’t judge the piece with any degree of objectivity.

My most reliable indication that I need to incorporate a particular piece of feedback occurs when I reread the passage in question and feel a twinge in my stomach. Then I hear that old voice in my head: “Yep, deep down I thought that was a problem all along. But I was just too attached to the beauty or cleverness of my words—or simply too lazy—to fix it. I sure was hoping I’d get away with it, but I guess I didn’t.”

Above all, as you respond to criticism of your writing, remember that you can’t please everyone. If you try to suit all the people, or even all the “important” people who have commented on your work, you could find yourself busily sanding away idiosyncrasies, “normalizing” unconventional portions, and lopping off risky passages—all of which will serve only to homogenize your writing and turn it into (at best) craft instead of art.

The biggest argument against workshops and writing groups is that they can take a diamond in the rough and reduce it to a trinket. Keep in mind that art is not created by consensus.

After you absorb all those outside voices about your story, poem, or novel, try to seed the criticism into your subconscious. Then wait a few days, weeks, or even months. When you reread your work, look carefully for any signs that the criticism you’ve digested is the criticism for which the piece is asking. The work itself must play the final judge. It will always speak truthfully if you learn how to listen closely enough.

Ann Pancake is the author of the novel Strange as This Weather Has Been, forthcoming from Shoemaker & Hoard. She is currently on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.