This is a tough subject for many writers. Let me start by saying that its perfectly OK with me if you never revise a single line or word of a poem you write. If you think your golden verse is set in stone, cool! But consider, if you will, that an average or even a bad poem might be made into a good or great poem by revising it. I once revised a poem 27 times and I'm still not satisfied with it, but because I like its basic structure, I keep working and working on it. And yes, it is possible to over-revise a poem until it looses its emotion, its pizzazz. That's all I'm going to say about revision for now. 

The main problem with poetry, like many of the arts, is ego. Its very easy to believe your golden verse is set in stone and could never be revised. But in my experience, once in a while a great poem comes through, directly from the muse, that will forever stand unaltered. But try to develop the habit of going back and looking at the other 80 percent of your poems and see if, perhaps there's clichés that could be changed with fresh language, or lines or words chopped out, even (gasp!!) whole stanzas.

When you read other famous poets, you'll see a lot of them are very brief and terse and sparing with their words. And more powerful because of it. How many times have you read a great poem and a line or phrase, perhaps even a single word, set your mind to dancing and going far a field with just the hint that is given you.

I also strongly recommend finding a poetry class (or forming your own poetry group) to get feedback. Sometimes we just can't see that there's not enough detail to give your reader a clue to what you are getting, or perhaps (more likely) there's too much verbiage cluttering up an otherwise fine poem.

And the reverse is also true. Don't revise just to revise. Analyze your poetry, but don't over-analyze it and revise it to death so that it loses all of its emotion and punch. Yes, its a fine line to walk, but well worth it.

And lastly, poetic feedback and advice is like any other advice. Who is it coming from? Is this person a good poet themselves? Do they have an axe to grind? And you can always ignore their feedback after a careful consideration. And remember, critique is praise rephrased.

Try adding fresh, even crazy language to these similes:

The moon, broken off like ________________________.

The red flower, brilliant as ________________________.

Her fingers, delicate as ___________________________.

Your backbone, ridged like _______________________.

The crazy bird's song, like ________________________.

The days passed like _____________________________.

The blood flowed out into the streets like _____________________.

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