There's an old anecdote about the nervous young vicar preparing for his first sermon in a new parish. Asking advice of his elder mentor, he is told 'If you think you're doing well, stop. But if you think you're doing very well, stop sooner'.

That's very good advice for us poets as well. Many a potentially great poem has been spoilt by going on too long – a brilliant idea that could have been expressed concisely and forcefully in very few stanzas gets watered down into a long 'poem' that buries the important idea in superfluous verbiage (or worse, irrelevant banalities). A classic example is Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. This complex narrative in seven parts (140-odd stanzas) contains just one phenomenally powerful image (part 3, stanzas 8-13) which most probably was the visionary inspiration for the entire work:

The western wave was all a-flame.

The day was well nigh done!

Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly

Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,

(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered

With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,

Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the Sun

Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a DEATH? and are there two?

Is DEATH that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,

And the twain were casting dice;

'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

Much of the remaining 96% of the work is well crafted according to the fashions of the time and contains a few moderately powerful images, but the banality of some of it boggles the imagination. For a start, why did the wedding guest hang around to listen to the entire seven parts – particularly part seven relating to a hermit good who lives in a wood that 'slopes down to the sea' but seems to serve no purpose other than to 'talk with marineres / That come from a far countree', let alone the utterly banal dialogue between two disembodied voices in part six. And incidentally, there's a couple of justifications (among many) for those who disapprove of rhyme (good/wood; sea/countree – yuck!). But it would be hard to argue against the clarity and expressiveness of the stanzas quoted above

The poet's problem here was likely how his intuitive nightmare vision might go down with his readership, and he sidestepped the problem by burying it in fashionable fluff (the left brain taking over). But although the first stanza above isn't quite strong enough to introduce a possible immensely powerful short poem, maybe capped and footed to no more than eight stanzas it would stand alone. Incidentally, Coleridge avoided padding his poem Kubla Khan (although possibly by luck as he had 'planned' for 200-300 lines but was interrupted by 'a person from Porlock'), resulting in a short but powerfully expressed dream image that has become a classic. But the penalty was that his contemporaries disapproved of the poem – well, you can't have everything (at least not all at once).

So we poets have a choice – we can succumb to the temptation to 'not make waves' and ensure all our works are socially acceptable according to current fashion by padding them with superfluous matter until they appear harmless, or we can express our intuitive visions boldly without compromise regardless of fashion. And the most important rule in the latter case is to avoid over-explaining – indeed, to stop sooner.