I wonder if now when we think of “sweat and tears” in poetry what we mean by that is diligent crafting.

But there is another form of this – the experience that went into the poem in the first place, the sweat and tears of everyday living. And the sweat and tears of that which you need not search for, life experience, which seems to find you, wreck and ruin you, and then expect you to get up in the morning.

And so many people are simply at the mercy of the way the world makes them feel, they don’t need deaths or love affairs to feel a little wrecked.

— Katie Peterson
from an interview at How a Poem Happens