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Marginalia

Marginalia
Swings by Night
Samuel E. Blackburn
First draft
My favourite place
Seems perverted
Annotation I deleted this section because it was composed entirely of abstract concepts
Final draft
The see-saw, like a rack,
and the rubber breaking wheel,
gorged now, remember
their last victims.
Annotation I added this stanza to create a more vivid sensory experience
What does revision actually  look like?
Sometimes when we look at a finished poem we can forget how much work went into drafting and revising it. In our Marginalia series, poets share their first and final drafts, with notes on what they changed and why.

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