By Jacq Mayoral Olascuaga
It feels wrong
To rewrite an original poem.
To bastardize the scripture
To change the emotional intent
To go back and altering past words
But still, there’s this need to do so
To clean up my scribbles of emotions
Though now I wonder
Did poets before me retool their poems before releasing them?
Was Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” originally about blue jays?
Were train conductors on Walt Whitman’s mind when he wrote “O Captain! My Captain!” ?
Does it matter?
Should it matter?
Is revising an old poem bad?
Could doing so erase the original emotion behind it?
Is it possible to strengthen past emotions by doing so?
Or is it simply akin to redrawing an art piece you did years ago?
White Noise Zine 