To Ossify a Poem: Now, ossifying can only be done by the living poet themselves, when they take the poem, over the years of word changes etc, and set it for good. Then it has bones, then you can see if it stands up...and that's not up to you at all. That's up to it. by that time you have basically nothing to do with it. the ting with poems is that you write the poem and it is only from the poem that the poet emerges...if at all. we think that artists paint pictures, but it is the pictures that project the artist into a short reality....not the other way round at all.The artist is the projection, and they're usually terrible messy folk and don't last long, that's for sure...same with the good poets. It isnt a long or well paid gig at all, at all. that's the thing...the poem, the painting...it has to be equal to life, but not life...and this involves a certain payment...and it is in the payment that an artist can briefly emerge, but never for long.