A poem feels finished when I can’t enter it again. Everything falls into place, each line feels balanced and complete, the shifts between lines and sentences feel shocking but also permanent and incapable of change. This poem is finished. I have to make something new. I have to be a different poet.
Richie Hofmann: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/06/14/making-of-a-poem-richie-hofmann/
And:
I have often found… that sometimes the best revision of a draft is the writing of a new poem.
Christian Leithart 