How do you know when a poem is finished?
I don’t. I know when I’m finished though: when I’ve exhausted the components essential to the continuing composition of the poem—ideas, rhymes, metaphors, time, the suggestions of others etc. Once those resources are consumed, I have the best version of the poem I can currently muster, and I either accept what’s there and try to get it published or I shake my head and keep it to myself. I don’t throw it away; I just store it with my other odds and ends and see what’s next.
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