You poety types are getting on my tits!
Time was I saw nice things, and went about my business.
Time was I thought things. Nice things, beautiful things, horrible things. But gave not a jot. Went for a pint, and they were forgotten.
Now, because of you lot, I carry a pen and paper. I see and think things and start a bloody pome.
I've got loads now, unfinished, sat in my pocket.
So I have two questions.
Why have you fucked my otherwise utopian life up, you bastards?
But mainly, how do you choose which one to finish?
Do you do them all? Do you finish the easiest one? What?

If you haven't finished them they might not be that good in the first place. Or maybe there are phrases or ideas in there that you can incorporate into other works. If you care about a poem you finish it, usually within a short space of time. It may need revision (which should be done after a period of time which allows a certain amount of objectivity), but the body of a poem is often created in 'one' creative burst. Going back to an old poem is difficult, the essential spark of motivation is dulled.

I am largely speaking about my own creative process here but I don't know many poets who go back and finish incomplete verse. (This excludes very long pieces where an evolving ethos or narrative may be present). If you care about poetry the chances are your creativity is constantly shifting and you have changed too much to pick up where you left off. You should also be getting new ideas that excite you all the time. Why go back to something that you obviously weren't committed to in the first place?

Revising poetry is different. That can go on forever. Michael Symmons Roberts claims that he never thinks a poem is finished until he has had six months to revise it. T. S. Eliot reckoned no poem is ever finished.

Welcome to the world of poetry Baz. So WE are getting on YOUR tits - and there was I thinking you were trying to get on ours...
If it makes you feel better I have a stack of unfinished poems, but on my computer, not in my pocket. Unlike Siren, I don't have the luxury of being able to finish them in one hit. I have a very hectic home life - I very often go back to them cold and have to resurrect them from the dead. The ones which by some miracle make it on to WOL do so by quirk of fate. Some poems just speak to you and have to be finished. Anger works best for me - if I'm angry I normally find the motivation to finish. If I'm sad it's hit and miss - often I wouldn't want to post it anyway so there is less motivation.
The problem with not finishing a poem immediately is that often events overtake them. Your view on an issue or life can change and the poem that once meant something to you is meaningless. It is probably a good idea to start and finish one poem at a time - depends on just how disciplined you are - I just don't seem able to do that. Often I get just one line of a poem and end up building the rest of the poem round it. If that one line is powerful and means something to me, I will leave all the poems that are 'nearly there' to construct a whole new one....So, to get back to your original question, how do you choose? I don't know.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.


Kahlil Gibran

Baz, just let them choose you.

I like your little quote Carole - great if half of what you say means something - if the whole lot is meaningless there is just no point.

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You seem a little touchy Siren. I wasn't criticising you for that comment - just explaining why I don't often manage to start and finish poems in one go. I don't watch TV either and have largely switched off to everything other than childcare, work and poetry. I won't go into competition with you over who has or had the hardest lot - let's just conclude that, as individuals our life circumstances drive us differently. You managed to complete your poetry in spite of all, perhaps driven by your situation. I, on the other hand, complete things randomly. Poetry of any quality sometimes needs dragging out of me and I am often just too tired to go through the effort. You may see that as an excuse - I don't really care what anyone else thinks - it doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things.

I am posting a poem that might explain my position Siren. It was written months ago and isn't technically good. The hardest decision of all is often not which poem to finish but which poem to share.

Without sounding too arty-farty about poetry in general, I find that when something hits me it just has to be scribbled down. I've tried both doing them in one go and coming back to them either overnight or a couple of days later, both seem to work.
I just dread the waiting and the wondering whether another is going to come along. At the moment they still do.

Sorry, Isobel. Perhaps it's residual guilt about being perceived as a 'lazy student' after working for twenty-odd years that made me so touchy. I also meets a lot of poets who don't work (and never really have), but complain about how 'draining' poetry is etc. I am also touchy about women assuming that all men have no home-life responsibilities. It just isn't true.

You state that poetry needs to be dragged out of you. That touches on the real reason for my productivity, such as it is. I write fairly quickly. Most of my poems are written (the main body of the work, that is) in less than two hours. And all I need is a quiet room. Sometimes I write most of it at work in my head and write it down frantically when I get home. I'll read your poem soon and comment on it.

Sorry again.

No worries Siren. I have a lot of respect for anyone who could have taken on the things you did. We all tend to make assumptions about each other's lives - I find it amusing when I hear women complain about their lot when they have 1 or 2 children and doting grandparents round the corner to babysit at the drop of a hat. Much of my child rearing was done hundreds of miles away from any form of help. There is no need to comment on my poem - it is technically weak and definitely not cutting edge. I'm trying to up the game a bit but am finding it hard. I do envy you being able to write so quickly. Some people are naturals - when you talk to them they almost talk in poetry - that must give them a bit of a head start!

Ta for answering nice poety types.
Siren says 'If you haven't finished them they may not be that good in the first place'. Rubbish! All my pomes are brilliant. Except most of them.
I, like you Siren, often write a pome in an hour or two, the difference being, I suspect, that I have a deadline, in that I'm in the Tudor on Thursday around 6pm, and someone reminds me it's pottery night at 8. So I scribble something down. In retrospect, some were really shit.
But later you point out that Michael thingy Roberts only thinks a pome is finished until he has six months to revise it. I fully agree, but that pisses me off too, cos I've got the 'need revision' ones in my bloody pocket as well.
Isobel, anger works for me also, but I wanna try nice pomes as well. I love a rant, and find it easier, as you say, to do them quickly.
And yes, it's a good idea to just do one at a time, but as Mr Sherwood said, 'I hope another one doesn't come along. And they still do'.
I even think of a new pome simply from one line of my present pome. Now that DOES piss me off.
But I like Dave's idea - let them choose you! Brilliant.
Anyway, just to annoy you, I do go to the pub a lot, watch loads of TV with my feet up, eating takeaways and if I had kids, would keep them in the freezer. And when I was arrested, I'd start a pome about it, and keep that in my fuckin pocket as well.

Baz - you are priceless - it sounds like you have life sorted! It also sounds like we have this discussion wrapped - let the poems choose us...