She or he must possess developmental editing skills. Must be creative, imaginative.
Hello there if you are talking about "pretty words" by Elinor Wylie then.. I think the tone for the poem is admiring be cause when Wylie says "Words shy and dappled, deep eyed deer in herds" and, "I love words opalescent, cool and pearly", it shows her admiration for all sorts of words. When Wylie says in line 1 " poets make pets of pretty, docile words", she means that you can command words to do whatever you want if you know how to use em.
Theme: poets understand the uniqueness, weight, and beauty that words can hold and they know how to use them.
So pretty much here's a little summary: the speaker is comparing words to pets, and how they can be 'tamed'.
Hopefully that all helps!
Can you give me some context? What excerpt?