Lawrence Hall, HSG
Old and Unselected Poems
Why do publishers entitle volumes of verse
New and Selected Poems?
Is it the editors’ lack of imagination?
Or is it some sort of secular rubric
An inky “We’ve always done it that way?”
When you finish writing a poem it is new
It didn’t exist before you, and now it does
And someone who reads your poem has selected it
It wasn’t selected until someone picked it up
Every poem is forever new and selected
And to the joy of your friends, so are you
