Approach Quote by Allison Joseph

When I start writing a poem, I can usually know quite early on whether it's a lineated or prose poem, but I don't think…

— Matthea Harvey

Sometimes the best revision of a poem is a new poem.

— Marvin Bell

I'm very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem.…

— Billy Collins

For me, form is something I locate in the process of writing the poems. What I mean is, I start scribbling, and then try…

— Matthew Zapruder

Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same

— Edward Hirsch

Writing a poem is always a process of subtracting: you start with all of language available to you, and you choose a smaller field.

— Matthea Harvey

In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it.

— Mary Oliver

Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality,…

— Jason Reynolds

The form I most enjoy writing is the sonnet or sonnet-like forms, where you have a - you know, three stanzas or two stanzas…

— Sherman Alexie

Every poem, formal or free, has an ideal shape, and the job of the poet is to find it.

— Peter Meinke

Usually form seems to find me in the process of writing a poem, though I have nothing against starting out with the form.

— Matthea Harvey

When you break a poem down in order to perform it, you have to engage closely with many aspects of what it's about, how…

— Michael Rosen