How do you know when a poem is finished?
I love this question. It is an entirely mysterious thing to me. I’ll get a feeling, a sense of wholeness, when a poem is finished. Which sounds far too highfalutin. It just means that a poem feels done. Conversely, when a poem isn’t finished, it bothers me; it feels off and can keep me up at night. Is the form right and does it serve the poem? Is each word the right word? Is the lineation correct? Etc. I spend a lot of time reading each draft of a poem out loud to see if it sounds right to me. On the other hand, maybe poems are never done.
No comments:
Post a Comment