How do you know when a poem is finished?
I can reread it and not feel as Lowell said “paralyzed by fact”…the poem doesn’t feel lurid, garish or grouped. Words aren’t laid or pasted down, instead the pressurized words form a matrix, a world, and you need to interact with it and be in that mess of potentiality. If I think I’m beginning to think too much, I stop writing and walk away. So years may go by before anything is finished. But when I close them down, I still want the feeling of “no conclusion.” I was editing someone’s poem the other day and she asked, “Are you as hard on your own poems?” Oh my God, yes. Worse. I have a Supreme Court Justice of Poetry in my head, always, always.
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