Tariq Luthun : part one

Tariq Luthun is a Detroit-born Palestinian community organizer, data consultant, and Emmy Award-winning poet. He earned his MFA in Poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and currently serves as Editor of the Micro Department at The Offing Literary Magazine. His work has appeared in Vinyl Poetry, Lit Hub, Mizna, and Button Poetry, among other credits. His first collection of poetry, HOW THE WATER HOLDS ME, was awarded Editors' Selection by Bull City Press and is available now.

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I don’t think you can ever know when a poem is finished. I recall being in a workshop co-lead by New York poet Jon Sands back when I was a teenager, and when it was time to pause our drafts and put our pencils down he said, “Remember: you have the rest of your life to finish this poem.”
That notion gave me a lot of comfort, but it is also somewhat daunting to think about how you can always revisit a poem. Once you realize that a poem is an extension of the body, and is thus as malleable as its creator, there are too many moving parts to consider: the emotional and mental state of the writer, the world around us and what it calls for, the content itself and if it has been done justice, etc. So, if you’re like me, you might feel compelled to revise the work beyond its initial “timestamp” of publication.

So, I think the closest we can get to “finished” is actually coming to a place where we feel that the poem is ready. To take it a step further, I believe that a poem is ready to enter the world when the creator feels at peace with the work the poem is doing, and believes that someone, somewhere, may benefit from engaging with said work.