Charles Simic

PARIS REVIEW: What kind of part does revision play in the way you write—do you often get a poem in one go, so to speak, or do you work on draft after draft?

CHARLES SIMIC: Even when I’m stretched out in my coffin they may find me tinkering with some poem. Even published poems I won’t leave alone. I very rarely get it right in one go. Mostly I revise endlessly. I don’t keep old drafts, but I imagine in some cases they must number into the hundreds. There’s a danger in endlessly tinkering like that. I’ve ruined many poems, took all the life out of them by not letting them remain a bit awkward, nonsensical, and inept. At times, such “weaknesses” give the poem whatever charm it has, but it’s not easy to know until one tries to improve it.
-Paris Review