John Crowe Ransom on the revision of poetry

There’s no way to revise a poem…without talking the very same situation, shutting our eyes, and submitting it again to the imagination to see what’s there: To see if better little aspects, little angles, of that experience won’t turn up. It’s hopeless if you go out into the woods, say, and say well, I’ll rewrite this poem. You sit down and ponder but the thing won’t come back, and you don’t know what you’re looking for, really.

—John Crowe Ransom