"A Found Poem" by Maxine Kumin

Whenever I caught him down in hew stall, I'd approach.
At first he jumped up the instant he heard me slide
the bolt. Then I could get the door open while
he stayed lying down, and I'd go in on my hands 
and knees and crawl over to him so that
I wouldn't appear so threatening. It took
six or eight months before I could simply walk in
and sit with him, but I needed that kind of trust.

I kept him on a long rein to encourage him 
to stretch out his neck and back. I danced with him
over ten or fifteen acres of  fields with a lot
of flowing from one transistion to another.
What I've learned is how to take the indirect route.
That final day I felt I could have cut
the bridle off, he went so well on his own.

                           

                                                                        ~Maxine Kumin

The main theme Maxine expresses in this poem is the idea of trust and letting go. She relates writing a poem to letting a young horse go free. As much as she wants to keep holding on to it and nurture it, she knows she must trust her instincts and let it run away on its own. The same goes for writing poetry. Maxine is implying that too often poets hang on to their creations too long because they believe there is always something that they can fix. That is true; there is always going to be something that you can tweak but there comes a point when you must trust yourself that it is complete. In the seventh and eighth stanza, she states, "It took six or eight months before I could simply walk in and sit with him, but I needed that kind of trust". This is implying that she didn't even feal comfortable reading her own writings at first and the caution she displays in the first six stanzas displays the same caution she has when writing her poems. When she states,"I danced with him over ten or fifteen acres of  fields", she means that she took the "indirect route". She didnt follow a specific order when writing. It was spontaneuous. After trusting herself, she cut the bridle off and "he went so well on his own". We can infer that she finally put away her pencil and let the world see what she had written. Many people are going to interprete the meaning of poems differently just like some people may have interpreted this poem different than I did. What is important to know that is that when writing poetry, it is okay to go about it in a slow, cautious manner and to truly take the time to make it beautiful, but it is also important to not dwell on it so much and let people create their own meaning out of it.