Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it.
Howard NemerovAbsolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you, they will only take care of themselves.
Howard NemerovWhen I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.
Howard Nemerov