...I do not write "about" things but "with" things or "out of" things. And I certainly do not map out a poem before I write it...I often learn after the fact of writing a poem what it may ultimately mean, and often even that notion of meaning shifts as the poem and I move through time (p.197-198).

-Peter Gizzi comments on his poem, "Human Memory Is Organic" in T&W book Structure & Surprise : Engaging Poetic Turns