News at Eleven: I like what I got down on paper

so far and fall asleep that night convinced I have a poem in the making.

The next day I'm not so sure. The sunset is too poetic, the depiction of my grandparents is too sentimental, and so much of it has to go. Weeks later--since I can't stop tinkering with the poem--I arrive at the conclusion that the old dog lying in the yard surrounded by the pecking chickens and the rooster is what I like best. The sun is high in the sky, a cherry tree is in flower, and the grandfather is out of the poem entirely.

from The New York Review of Books: Where Is Poetry Going?

~~~~~~~~~~~