Forgive the typing error in the subject.

What is the correct etiquette about republishing work you have already published? If after repeated readings you decide "that is so not as finished as I thought it was" is it OK to include in further volumes so long as there is an acknowledgement of where it previously appeared even if in a slightly or radically different form? I believe it is possible to plagiarise yourself

Paul hi: I, myself,((cough)) have declared that all of my work is a work in progress, and subject to change. Re-editing is as old as the Gutenberg press. Declare any such change and you'll get a pint off me anytime. :o)

How are you publishing? In magazines or self-published, or in published-by-others books?

In anything you self-published, it really doesn't matter. Poems are often changed between publication in a magazine/anthology and that of 'final publication' in a full-length collection.

Auden famously (or notoriously) changed his poems for later 'Collected Poems' and omitted ones he no longer believed in. Ted Berrigan's practice was similar: he'd sometimes keep changing things for years.

As long as you declare those changes, and are prepared for the inevitable "I prefer your original version..." comments from some, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

As a French poet once said, "A poem is never finished, it's only abandoned."

Wonderful, thank you. I self published a collection and was initially swept up in the self congratulatory rush of achievement but now I read it and I hate a lot of it, or at the very least am extremely dissatisfied. I was going to "retire" it so the four or five copies sold will become rare artefacts in the future, oh sorry I need to go change now I just laughed too hard. So it looks like I have plenty of pruning , weeding and nurturing ahead

Have fun!