Describing the work of the poet Frank O'Hara, the linchpin of the New York School, the poet and critic Michael Schmidt writes, "He was casual about his poems: it's not that he didn't value them, but he didn't worry much about them after they were complete. He could be scrupulous but was not always too concerned about the final text." Schmidt continues: "What mattered to O'Hara was the writing of them." This is an approach that stands in contrast to that of many other writers, a way of doing things best summarized by Ernest Hemingway's dictum that "the first draft of anything is s--t."
How Stealth Editing Undermines Journalism
