Phases of Poetry-Writing

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Phases of Poetry-Writing


Poets starting out write
poems to please themselves,
one way or another.

Later they write poems
to please others,
then poems to please

themselves and others.
In the next and last phase,
they know what a good

poem is in their way
of writing is and, nothing
personal, they don't care

too much what others think.
Dickinson passed through
these phases all at once

and stayed
in all these phases
simultaneously.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom