Able Quote by Wislawa Szymborska

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

Once a year I try writing a poem, usually because I've read some poetry that amazed me and I want to do that.

— Steve Toltz

I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels,…

— Ron Rash

I'm not a poet. So the writing process is a difficult one for me.

— Billy Squier

I write one poem a year, usually in January or February.

— Emily Susan Rapp

I must say, when I reread myself, it's the poetry I tend to look at. It's the most exciting to write, and it's over…

— John Updike

Poems that come swiftly are usually the ones that you keep.

— Seamus Heaney

I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in.

— Sue Monk Kidd

Most of the poems I write go through forty versions and then stay in a file on my computer. I'm not very good at…

— Nick Laird

With time some poems just fall by the wayside. Other poems get better over time with revision, revision, revision. My ladybug poem took 10…

— Douglas Florian

Poems seem to have a life of their own. They tell you when enough is enough.

— Thomas Lynch

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was…

— Simon Armitage