Poetry Editorial Services
Sean Singer has been one of my most trusted readers for over a decade. His vision for and grasp of the possibilities of a work-in-progress are ever-sharp and completely dependable. He is the poem’s compass. —CM Burroughs
ABOUT POETRY EDITORIAL SERVICES
I offer services to help people with poetry and with academic prose. These forms are in some ways opposites. Poetry is about metaphor and bringing things together, whereas academic prose is about analysis and taking things apart. Both forms, to paraphrase Stanley Kunitz, require digging into the pit of the self and then finding ways to dig out again.
Writing is tantamount to thinking, and the first goal of writing should be to create the person who will do the writing. The voice in a piece of writing should be an intelligent, human voice speaking to the reader. I can help you create the writer and the writing.
SOME OF THE SERVICES I OFFER
Close readings (explication, exegesis)
Detailed letter about your manuscript’s ideas, themes, strengths, problems, form, structure, and tone
Suggestions for what to read, where to send your work, and how to keep pushing forward
Literary fixes: driving the manuscript inward, structuring to link memory or lived experience with specific language, infusing static or inert diction with energy
Help bringing out the poet’s best intention for the poems without imposing my own aesthetics
Empathic inquiry into waking up all the connections between the deeper subject and feelings
Encouraging capacity for psychological stamina after inspiration, wherein the writer nurses their strongest feelings
Skills of deepening oneself in the writing
Intensive discussion of the long, psychological middle stage of revision
Line edits: spelling, punctuation, line lengths, line breaks
Poem-by-poem analysis of what’s happening in terms of layers of meaning, voice, diction and metaphor
Understanding and navigating the publishing industry
Understanding how your work is seen, received, and how it relates to other people
Support with process: making sure the practice sits in the parameters of your life
Strategies for managing promotion and marketing