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I've got the poem and poet so I'm making steady progress but I still haven't got the hang of what letters to delete from the grid.

For example, I think the fourth letter of 34a has to be an N to fit in with 24d but that means I have to omit two letters out of IED for 24d and none of that would seem to fit in with the periodic table mentioned earlier in this thread.

Hi Orson

Keep the I (iodine)

Delete the E and D.

Orson, you are right to think that two of the last three letters have to be omitted. The two that are not elements have to be omitted so the grid fulfills the description of the first line of the poem.

Thanks, dja and murky. And here was I thinking I had to delete the elements!

Is there any point of adding the letters at the bottom of the grid. Surely solvers would have to have identified A, D, E etc in order to complete the puzzle. Does order mean alphabetical order or am I missing something?

You need to write the letters removed from the central column in order from top to bottom. Not all the excluded letters from the whole puzzle.
These letters in this order spell something relevant.

OK thanks for that. I thought the phrasing in the last part of the preamble was a bit misleading.

Just realised what these deletions spell - that’s truly amazing!

Finished except for 21a, 25a and 16d. I know there's been a hint for 16d already but it didn't really help me. Thanks in anticipation.

16d: anag of crims(on) (f)ace, then do the necessary removals