how to view corrections to your writing

One of the most famous lines of English poetry is "April is the cruelest month..." So begins the first line of TS Eliot's famous poem The Wasteland. But it might not have been so! Even T.S. Eliot didn't do on his own. The famous poet sent many drafts of his poetry to Ezra Pound for advice and suggestions.

Read on to see what it might have been and why it wasn't.

Below is a draft of how Eliot first began the poem. I show you this to get you to think about writing and the corrections you may receive on your writing as a process rather than as any kind of personal attack or criticism. All writers require practice to hone their skills and any corrections you receive should be taken as just that, constructive criticism that might help to improve your writing.

Images are from The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound (A Harvest Special).