MENTORSHIP RECIPIENT

Mentorship Recipient: "Inadequacy"

Mentor Commentary:
​Ali Black

On the Revision Process for "Inadequacy"

by ​​Annie Cigic

​Last lines and endings are important. Sometimes I put a lot of pressure on the last line of my poems. I've never had an editorial mentorship, so I did worry about the changes I'd have to make to my poem, "Inadequacy." I am close to my work and also to the speakers in my work, which sometimes makes me cling to their subjects a little more strongly than usual. I worked on the last line of the poem, and while I thought the original ending was a "cool" line, it wasn't right and didn't ring true to what I went in with at the beginning stages of this poem's being. I revised and I wrote a last line that holds more truth.

The last line took a lot of thinking. I wish I could say I was able to come up with it on the spot, but it took a lot of digging and understanding what the word inadequacy meant to me for the poem. I enjoyed working with Ali and I feel like the poem has settled into itself and I feel more confident about the piece. 

Annie Cigic
​
Annie Cigic hails from Cleveland. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Bookends Review, The Hunger, Silver Needle Press, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University and will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing this fall.