"In class, I shared a set of drafts of a poem that appeared in my most recent collection. One by one, I projected versions of the poem onto a screen. I drew attention to the red ink slashing through unwanted words. I pointed out how I added, struck, added, struck and then re-added a comma. I boasted about my careful use of my favorite punctuation mark-the delightfully overlong em dash."
"When I stopped, a student in the front row quipped, "That doesn't seem efficient." In response, I quoted Annie Dillard-"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives"-and I talked about the concept of "craft." I suggested that a committed craftsperson produces work, but that in important ways, and for the reason Dillard suggests, the work also produces them. In the end, the time we spend on our projects makes us who we are."
Thirty-two drafts of a poem were displayed to reveal repeated revisions, red-ink deletions, reinserted commas, and deliberate punctuation choices, demonstrating an iterative craft process. A student's quip that the process seemed inefficient prompted an Annie Dillard quotation linking daily practice to the shape of a life. Committed attention to craft both produces work and produces the craftsperson. Time devoted to reading and writing functions as an investment in intellectual and moral formation. Giving oneself time to exercise faculties changes the dimensions of the mind and gradually shapes the person a college experience yields.
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