Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  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