Matt Robinson : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

First off: for me, I am not sure that a poem is ever really finished, per se. I think poems get to a point where they get a release into the world (to a readership / listenership) via publication or performance of some kind OR they get abandoned. But I am becoming more and more convinced that a poem is never really finished. They continue, or should continue, to change and morph and grow and age and settle and fracture.

That is, no doubt, related to the fact that I am a notorious serial reviser. I always have been. I have also always had a really keen interest in the drafting and revising process—really the growth and evolution—of poems, as a writer and a reader. (Some context: the one critical article I actually ever published, years ago, was essentially an examination of how certain poems on Jeffrey Donaldson’s “Waterglass” morphed from their initial journal publication form to the pieces that appeared in his actual book.)

I’ll frame it this way: I have poems that were published in books 20 years ago that I still revisit and tweak in terms of shape and line breaks and overall construction. Some lines or fragments disappear and some get added. But there is always opportunity there. And even if a poem gets abandoned, I think it will eventually get returned to in one fashion or another: even if that takes years.

In a more finite sense, for me a poem is “done” or ready for its initial intro to the world once it passes the recording test. I draft through various stages but always get to a point where I am mostly reading the poem aloud (and recording it to listen to that recording) so I can hear whether it is doing what I had thought it was. That reading, recording, and listening process is maybe the poetic equivalent to using various fine grades of sandpaper in finish carpentry. I’m mostly listening for flow and rhythm and sound and such at that point. The logic and rhetoric and overall sense is usually already sorted at that point. What is really being figured via recording and listening is whether there are rhythmic hiccups or quirks that need to be figured out / corrected. 

So, I suppose a poem’s most recent or current iteration is close to “done” when it starts showing up as multiple voice memos on my phone.