How do poets choose the last poem for a book? Wait, you don’t just throw the manuscript down the stairs then collect them back up in descending order? Well, something new every day…
The final poem has a large task—it has to make the book feel finished. It will, by its position, speak to every other poem in the book. It will inevitably turn the reader somewhere; the author decides where that will be. And the final poem will beg feelings of satisfaction for the reader. It’s a lot to ask of a single poem.
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