"It Is As Though" And "The Poem Is Not The Poet"

It is as though in processing I'm unwrapping old, crumpled papers and having to smooth out and reread them. I find new dots among the familiar ones. It's an ever-so-subtly-altering constellation of dots I'm connecting... epiphanies and revelations, such that astonish and amaze me. Each time I go at it is another way of grappling with having come this far, having become who I now am, and appreciating that I'm still evolving.


Good Morning Friend,

It is my understanding that the foundation as to my reading your poems is that you are not the poem.

That I, when reading your poetry, must enter it as though it were a conveyance, a sort of diving bell, one that takes me down and down -to some vast oceanic realm. It is for me to accept and respect: understand that it is not the poet, but the poem that is. It is what it is. I must allow myself to enter this bell and be conveyed where the poem intends.

I confess to feeling a bit confined and sealed in. The views it affords me are meant solely to be seen as its own world, speculative, perhaps whimsical, fanciful, and very often metaphysical. The depths to which the bell takes me must be respected, regarded (despite my claustrophobia) as inviolable. You mandate this: my being its occupant. And under no circumstances must I confuse the conveyance or the vistas as YOU yourself!

You are not what the conveyance would have me think of or look upon. Nor be allowed to to speculate and conjecture (even remotely) that the vistas are of you, my Friend. That would be violation of that inviolable and most private you reserved for no one.



If the The poem is of itself (inviolable) it must remain solely a conveyance to where you would have me taken. It is your wish I should not be confused by any other presuppositions I might fancy. Appreciate what a challenge it is you set before me!

Ah,me.

The bell is impermeable. Yet, I suspect an all too frail a veil. As you friend, your wish for privacy is sacrosanct.


My own poems are also conveyances( as are my drawings, my book art annotations, stories, etc.) conveyances that I also see as ciphers, secrets I wish not to hide, but expose to the light of epiphany.

As you are well aware, I see my work as my sole accessibility to that which is metaphorically pornographic, (not be looked at). I sort through these. I am heartened when these mysteries and secrets are deciphered, exorcised -neutered. I think it is here where our differences lie. You as one poet, and I as your admirer and friend use our art to different ends.

I respect you, respect your admonitions as to how you would have me read your poems.
And I defer.
I am

your friend, Norman