Do you ever go back and edit your poetry after it has been written and submitted? (Not including spelling or grammar errors)

One thing I have always been a bit of a stickler about is editing my poetry. Now I don't mean grammar or spelling errors, I mean really changing something in it. I'm a bit split in my opinion on the subject.

To begin with, in that moment, in that time of writing. You have a very dedicated state of mind, a precise feeling, a meaning you wish to convey with enchanting words. To go back and change what was written at that time is to change the very fabric of what you have written. You no longer feel that exact way you did when it was first written. You are no longer thinking the same thoughts, feeling that same feeling to the same degree. Thus, editing your poem changes what that poem is or was.

On the other hand. Sometimes you just don't know what the heck you were thinking at the time and the poem no longer makes sense. You feel it should be changed, should sound better or flow more smoothly. You may feel the same way you did at the time of writing, but it's not quite to the same degree.

Some poems I have gone back and rewritten. Though after doing this I can tell the poem took on a new essence, a different perspective, even if only one line was changed. Possibly it is nothing more than my innate ability to sense the very meaning of a word or maybe this is the case for others. In any case, I think it is an interesting subject to touch upon. Is a poem your wrote a day ago, week ago or month ago okay to edit...or to edit it is to change it's very core?

i believe once written its done. when you write a poem it has to be in the moment when all the thoughts are fresh and stirring to create a wonderful poem. It has to be the emotions your feeling at that moment. I believe if you dont like what your wrote then delete it and write the way you feel now i dont think you should ever change a poem that you have written in a sense your changing the very essence that it was created in. But i can see the problem some people have b/c i have wanted to change poems to but i just delete and start over fresh with the way im feeling now about the situations.

I agree to an extent.  Although, I find if you reread the poem in full, you often get ideas for other poems altogether.  That one poem may spawn several others.  Like most poets, I write in the moment.  I can't say I've ever changed a poem once I've finished it, but if I thought something could be changed, after rereading the entire poem, the change I thought it needed usually becomes an entirely different poem.

I would edit only to the degree of a better descriptive word, with the same meaning of course...I also feel that to edit areas of the poem changes its essence and this then seems to make writing pointless, changing you mind about how you feel should be a poem no-No!

When anyone asks, who is your inspiration, I always say Edgar Allen Poe first. Many people believe some of my poetry to be dark as his was, maybe not to the same degree but they say it. The one thing I've found, though, is like Poe, I tend to go back later, no matter when it is, and change small details about my poetry, like line order or to combined a few lines or change a word to another synonym of that word only because it sounds better but the one thing I have never done is add to add anything else maybe change the word but the words always mean the same but if I were to go back and add, say, a completely new line it just wouldn't be the same poem I started out with.

I have some poems that I have been tinkering with for a very long time. I write in the moment like many, I think (my poems anyway) benefit from being looked at in the cold light of day. I would never ever get rid of something I have written. Some stuff may remain unfinished forever but I have looked back on old writing and have been lead to a complete new poem. The moment people are looking at never changes but it is the lens and how well focused it is that allows people to see it clearly even if you make people work for it.

Usually when I reread a poem right after I write it a few times I'll end up changing something around to sound better or clarify my meaning. I find I accidentally repeat words a lot....haha

That IS a double sided situation.
It would be up to the individual. I have never edited my poems, but I do read them all the time. I find that they always make sense to me, and thats all that ever matters. The way I felt at the time. But like you said, if I was to write something that didn't make sense, and I think, where was I at there? I will rearrange the setout, but not the meaning. I would not change the feeling that I had with that poem. It IS possible :)

I have never felt the need to acctually change something other than grammer and spelling in one of my poems, the idea is foreign to me

Yeah, grammer and spelling is about all that I do too.

I prefer to keep it the way the first draft was. I don't care how good it can be, how I can replace one word to make the sense more fine, or the rhyme more acoustic. Spelling and grammar, well we need to check that as well. But most of the times, I miss that too(deliberately, often). Who cares!!!!

I start writing the poem, then choose (or invent) a form, finish, then go back and finesse it until it feels right.  Doing it this way round makes the poem seem more organic to me.  I would hate to have to have a poem set in stone the moment I write it.  

There is a period of time in which I feel the poem benefits from remaining "fluid" or changeable.  After this (usually a day or two, or even as short as half an hour), the poem "sets" like glue in its state - and is there-from uneditable except for minor spelling, grammar and/or beat fixes.  It's all psychology, but hey, we humans run on that.

sometimes, after something in me shifts gears, I'll read an old poem and discover in it something that I know should be brought to light. I'll wrap my feelings around it to protect the life inside my creation, and change it to way it should've looked and felt when it was born...

Normally i don't bother going back to my poems and editing them, it's more a therapy for me to write. If i ever enetered a serious competition then i'm sure i would, but i've only been writing poetry on and off for a few weeks.

I'm constantly seeking a way to better my writing. I've gone back to some pieces years later, with a better understanding, and been able to fix a phrase that bothered me, or replace a not-quite-right word. But I've never changed the original meaning of a piece. I don't think it's wrong, necessarily, but it would take away from the purpose of my writing--to provide a window into the past.