Poems

Abstract

Poems is a collection of seventy-one short poems with an introduction which is concerned primarily with the author's specification of the lyric moment as perceived through his own experience, which includes the major influence of three individuals in the tradition of the verbal, or musically-instrumentally unaccompanied lyric: Ezra Pound, Gary Snyder, and Basho. Pound and Basho are discussed as poet-teachers whose influence is profoundly felt and must be necessarily assimilated, but only through the fullest attentiveness does the assimilation even momentarily occur. Synder is discussed as poetic teacher; the author finds exemplary Snyder's sturdy and continuing sense of place and appreciation of the multiplicity of life forms as they have been found and translated into whorls or knots of language for thousands of years.