"My sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote"
About this Quote
The subtext is a warning against sentimental attachment. “Why you wrote it” is the most seductive excuse a poet has, because it turns a weak line into an emotional heirloom. Levine argues that revision starts when you can’t be bribed by intention. You enter a state where the poem becomes an object in the world, subject to the same skepticism you’d apply to anyone else’s work. That shift is also ethical. It’s a commitment to the reader, who can’t access your origin story, only the words you chose to leave behind.
Context matters here: Levine, the great chronicler of Detroit labor and working-class life, came out of a tradition that prized clarity, pressure, and earned feeling over decorative haze. His poems often carry lived experience, but he’s insisting that experience isn’t the credential; the writing is. The real revision, he implies, is learning to see your own draft as something that must persuade on the page, not in your memory.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Levine, Philip. (2026, January 16). My sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-sense-of-a-poem-my-notion-of-how-you-revise-135785/
Chicago Style
Levine, Philip. "My sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-sense-of-a-poem-my-notion-of-how-you-revise-135785/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-sense-of-a-poem-my-notion-of-how-you-revise-135785/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.
