Comparison of Two Drafts

My two drafts are extremely different, because I changed many aspects of draft 3 to reach draft 4. I decided to insert both poems side-by-side to make it easier to compare, and the poems are also hyperlinked in their respective column title. 

“Eyes” (Draft 3)

“Eyes” (Draft 4)

I posses the eyes That cruise through the murky waters And glide through the stormy air And reach what no one else can: Truth It’s true we face our own battles It’s true our world is changing But it’s also true we, as individuals, don’t truly matter When our species are drowning, Fast I see we scramble for order I see we fight to maintain pattern Except it’s impossible to stay complacent And cling to this naive mentality when change really is Required

One needs to posses the eyes That cruise through the murky waters And glide through the stormy air And see past our addiction to technology: To reach the truth It’s true we face our own battles, Running from work to home responsibilities Attending meetings with work colleagues while Attending to your crying child All at once It just takes a moment Of leaving a phone on the table Giving our eyes it’s deprived rest Stopping all digital connections to see What’s in front of you Popping our own life bubble, Stepping outside into reality. Our species needs help A hand to cross the street, a shoulder to lean on To stop from drowning. But instead we scramble for social media, Constantly check notifications Just to keep our lives together And believe online contact is better Than face-to-face.

Firstly, the previous draft had a lot of abstract nouns and words that weren’t very specific. An example of this is when I say “truth” in draft 3, but there’s no context provided. In draft 4, I mention “our addiction to technology,” which gives a little more context, because the truth is supposed to go beyond this ‘addiction.’

I also feel my previous draft didn’t have many definite ideas, it was all hypothetical with no examples. This is clear when I say, “we face our own battles” or that “our world is changing,” but I don’t know what battles ‘we’ face, or in what way ‘our world’ is changing. I didn’t put any detail because I thought the readers should analyze the poem themselves, and figure out what they personally take away from my poem. I now understand this isn’t the best way to write a poem, and therefore I tried to specify exactly what I was referring to in draft 4. For our battles, I talk about work and home responsibilities, even giving examples such as taking care of your child or sitting in on work meetings. In draft 4, I actually took away the sentence stating “our world is changing” and instead decided to describe that (show not tell), by displaying how technology has affected all of us, and nowadays people are always on their phones or other digital devices to check social media and communicate with others.

Another main difference between the drafts is that I made draft 4 much longer, because I was describing more specific things instead of generalizing and making floating claims. However, one thing I decided to keep the same was my stanza structure, with five lines per stanza, and the last line is shorter and concludes that stanza or a specific thought/message.

Lastly, in the last stanza of draft 3, it’s very hard to figure out what I was talking about. How do we “scramble for order” or what “change” is required. Instead of having a conclusive last stanza, it provokes more questions in the reader. To clear some questions, I talk about how people are stuck in their own bubble, and mainly care about only what affects them instead of others. To end the poem, I try to make my message clear, stating it looks like people care more about online connections more than personal face-to-face conversations. In the end, I feel that the changes I made to draft 3 to create draft 4 were successful in clearing up and fixing a lot of my initial problems.