Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."
I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.
Doing Poetry by Jack Gilbert
Poem, you sonofabitch, it's bad enough that I embarrass myself working so hard to get it right even a little, and that little grudging and awkward. But it's afterwards I resent, when the sweet sure should hold me like a trout in the bright summer stream. There should be at least briefly access to your glamour and tenderness. But there's always this same old dissatisfaction instead.
~ from Refusing Heaven (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)