Writing poetry can be a strange and frustrating exercise. Sometimes lines, or even entire poems arrive like a kind of gift from the subconscious and you must record them on whatever comes to hand.

Occasionally you might get one that feels complete from the off. Though in my experience this is rare. Even dreamlike poems, arriving like an apport on a medium’s table usually require some further working.

Most of poems I have written begin with a phrase, or perhaps a central notion and I start to expand them out from there. What I find tricky isn’t so much having an idea itself, but the best way to express it. When I try writing something new, or to tease a poem from a half-formed concept, a bunch of words and lines will start to grow outward, sometimes in almost prose form as the attempt to inflate the thing begins.

Then the hard work kicks in. Finding a form, shaping those words into something that might just resonate with someone else: a reader who did not see the object of your inspiration, or feel the same emotion, undergo a similar experience. How to take that imaginary dust and give it substance. Go from a transcribed record of something you have thought about, which has resonance to yourself and breathe into it enough life and interest to draw outside attention.

All too often I’ll overwrite. Not necessarily in a flowery, verbose style, but quite literally add too much. I can’t always tell. I’ll knock a poem into a length and form I think works to expresses a scene, a feeling, an idea worth sharing. Then, excited, I’ll look at where I might send it. Along with a couple of others in the classic three poem submission.

Most times, such poems do not find an instant home. They come back with a polite no thanks, do try again one day. Either that, or I tire of waiting. Then, I usually take another look. Invariably I’ll find that the thing’s too baggy, there’s too much going on. It’s too dense, or lacks a point.

Sometimes I’ll be convinced a poem works and send it out again and again and again. Mystified at each editor’s inability to share my belief in its inherent worth.

One way or another, eventually I’ll realise that although there may be something in that poem – a line, a central conceit worth saving – it isn’t working now. Then I’ll chip away again and try it out someplace else. Recently, after a poem about an ornamental cherry tree on my street was returned by yet another publication, I decided that I’d share it on social media instead – via Black Bough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday platform on twitter.

First I’d need to cut it right back, make it more imagist, with less of the meta, trying to be ludic and clever with sardonic commentary stuff I’d previously left around its central image. Roughly halved, with more focus on the heart of it, the poem, at last seemed to work. I shared it. Lots of people liked it. Lots of people commented. Admiring the central image. Appreciating its balance and the turn or volta at the end – shifting the mood towards more of a ‘blue note’ (which is something that doesn’t always work – falling flat, in a cheap-trick, last-line, it was all a dream kind of way).

All of this is very pleasing. Although I love the validation of a respected publication in print or online, sometimes I just want the poem to be read, by someone other than its author. I still don’t really understand what finally made the difference between multiple rejection and public enjoyment. That condensing, paring back and back, until a satisfying balance is achieved can be very hard to judge. Especially if like me, you don’t always believe that less is more. I guess close attention. Leaving poems alone for a while, then returning can do the trick. But are any ever really finished? I’m not sure I can say.

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Below, in its ‘final’ form is my poem ‘Not that kind of blossom’ about an exploding cherry tree, which may not be quite what it seems…