A Writing Tip by Jen Schneider
WHAT STILL FITS

I’ve always loved the beginning of writing: the open-ended, free-form part when an idea shows up and lets me follow it. It’s as sweet as a fashion trend that’s both affordable and flattering. 

It’s the cleanup that slows me down. 

Like the closet so stuffed that even opening the door feels like too much, I can see the problems. Usually. The cliché that sits at the front of the middle shelf. The line that tries too hard to be fashionable. The word I keep only because I like the sound of it, even though it is doing nothing for my figure — or the figure of speech. The ending that shows up in formal dress for a casual backyard gathering.

I know. I know.

Bell-bottoms are not flattering. Hoop earrings destroy my lobes. The shrunken wool cardigan from the early 2000s (or so) must go. So do the extra hundred words and the triple adjectives. Still, I can stand there for ten minutes holding the very thing I already know I should throw out.

Lately, revision feels less like inspiration and more like opening a closet and having one lug-sole shoe, a floral scarf, and three pairs of corduroys fall on my head. 

Usually, the hardest part is turning the doorknob. But once that’s done, I’ve found it helpful to prop the closet door open, crack the nearest window, and put on the radio (FM in stereo). 

It helps. 

Maybe.

Who knows what I’ll find? The missing hoodie. The Bon Jovi T-shirt. The stanza that makes a whole piece run wrinkle-free. The ending I stopped looking for.

I may not know what to do with all the pieces, but I can still recognize progress.

When writing a poem, I try to start small: first the topic, then a concrete image. So when revising a poem, I’ve decided to do the same.

I pull the button-down shirt that no longer fits. I take the plastic dry-cleaning cover off the polka-dot dress I haven’t worn in six years (but who’s counting?). I cut the run-on sentence and the thread with no home. I check the pockets of the flannel shirt and the leopard-print dress. I find a receipt, a cough drop, a ticket stub, and a crumpled note I once thought I needed. I did not.

I can use this. I can remove that.

I take out the skirt that never fell right. I let the jeans with the broken zipper go. I find the hoodie with the drop of chocolate ice cream on its cuff — and let it stay.

Keep going.

I cut the -ing verbs. I move the strongest line up. Replace the soft verbs. I let the title do more work. I pull the lazy metaphor from the back corner and see if it still holds its shape. I take out the stanza I kept only because it took an entire morning to write.

I find things I forgot I saved. Half-drafts and false starts. A title with no poem beneath it. A poem with three good lines and a lot of lint. A folder named “new ideas” from three years ago.

The mess begins to sort itself into useful questions. Once the floor is covered, I can finally see what I have. What’s left. What’s missing. The shirt purchased years ago and never worn. The phrase in the wrong stanza. The thing I forgot I wanted. The poem waiting under everything else, finally ready to be finished.

I’m learning to stay with the closet a little longer — to pull everything out, sort the scarves and match the shoes, shake dust from the tote bags, and put the old photographs somewhere safer. Then I decide whether the poem about the sweater is sentimental or just taking up room.

And I try not to panic when the floor looks worse before it looks better. The poem gets messier for a while. Some lines move. Some stanzas collapse. A good sentence is buried under six (sometimes seven) weaker ones. Something useful turns up in the wrong pocket.

I ask the poem the same questions I ask the closet: What still fits? What am I keeping out of guilt? What have I outgrown? What is shoved in the back because I don’t know where else to put it?

Hands in fabric.

Fingertips on keyboard.

Fold, cut, keep.

I’m allowing myself more time inside the mess.

My closets might never be tidy, and my poems don’t have to be either. I just have to keep opening the door.

Jen Schneider is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate. 

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