The thing I have found about the editable poem is you need to be zen about it. Sometimes you'll click it and it'll be amazing and you want it to stay that way - but it's not going to. Don't expect it to. If you really, really think it's so great, copy and save it somewhere, something akin to taking a snapshot. You can't be attached to the final outcome at all but that's a good thing because over and over again I have enjoyed not only the poem as it evolves, but usually the final product.

I have to say I'm not fond of the last three stanzas in this final poem. Part of it's the rhyme and honestly part of it is the focus on the words that were deleted (that I didn't even see). It's a meta-poem but you don't even know what it's about if you aren't aware of the story of the editable poem, which in my mind makes it less strong as a poem - I don't believe in poems that need to be prefaced. But, honestly, the lines as they stand by themselves aren't bad. I think it is just the focus on something I didn't even see or experience and therefore couldn't possibly care about on an emotional level (on a theoretical level, sure) that makes those lines not as - well, typically awesome. Just my personal experience of course.

I have to say I am surprised at how much of my additions were kept. Then again I did come in after everything had been deleted and I think there was not very much there, and I think I wrote it out into about 16 lines (four stanzas of four if I remember correctly). I think I caught the poem on the tailspin so not so many people edited afterwards, but of course there's no way to tell.

And that is really what makes this fun!

I know lil said she preferred tweaking to deleting or adding wholesale. But I think the ability to do that is part of what makes this exercise great. I think we need to be completely unattached to the lines of the poem as it edits. I think we should be able to burn it to the earth or add eight lines or completely depart from the topic. If you are attached to what you see take a snapshot and save it. Don't limit everyone's editing ability just because you like what's currently there.