Jim -
re: " How could a small poem require so much of me?"
Small poems are difficult. Although the author has no claim to the response his words evoke in the reader, he is the audience who is most demanding of the poem. The poem must present the music that truly resonates with the author's intention for the work, and that seldom, if ever, is achieved when the words are first set down. It is the editing process that extracts the gold from the rock of the first version, and that process needs to deal with self-doubt, inept form, poor word choices and even the question of, "What am I trying to do here?"
Editing a short poem is difficult in the same way that refining 24 karat gold is more difficult than refining 10 karat gold. It helps to remember that editing your own work not only changes the poem, it changes you as well. It's effort well spent.
JB
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