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Deane P. Goodwin - As has been observed, the initial structure, while intact and
useful, was hopelessly boring and unemotional. The first place I began to revise, was in
the removal of extraneous words, that is those words that offered nothing to advance the
poem by their inclusion. The words "appear as" in the first line are prime
examples of this. During the initial writing phase, these words were primarily mental
connectors, allowing my mind to flow from one idea to the next. As such, they were useful,
but their presence in the completed work would have served to weaken the whole. Likewise
the word "and" at the beginning of line 3. My personal approach to editing is to
first look for all the connective articles that I know I have placed there. The "and,
as, the, etc.", while useful in prose, are immediately suspect for me when I find
them in my poetry. My procedure is to remove each one individually, and see if it is truly
needed. If not, out it goes, into the scrapheap of forgotten words. Following this removal
and rearrangement, I began to look at the rhythm and structure of what remained. Again, I
considered the title and the content, and my solution to the pattern of the poem was to
attempt to simulate, within my existing words, a rhythmic, smooth pattern, and a somewhat
abrupt ending, thereby simulating the rhythm of the waltz and its unavoidable ending as
much as possible.